A Mirror of Shalott
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Light Invisible
The King's Achievement
By What Authority ?
The Sentimentalists
Richard Raynal, Solitary
The Queen's Tragedy
A Book of the Love of Jesus
A Mirror of Shalott
Composed of Talcs told at a Symposium
By
Robert Hugh Benson
Author of
"The Light Invisible," "By What Authority?
"The Sentimentalists," etc.
Primus est deorum cultus dfos credere.
I . . And moving through a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year
Shade w of the world appear . . .
Thi Lady of Shalott.
LONDON : SIR ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, LTD.
NO. 1 AMEN CORNER, E.C * * 1912
"OCT - 5 1943
COPYRIGHT IN U.S.A.
PRINTED BY SIR ISAAC PITMAN
& SONS, LTD., LONDON, BATH,
AND NEW YORK - - 1912
Contents
CHAP. PAGE
PROLOGUE ..... 1
i. MONSIGNOR MAXWELL'S TALE. . 15
II. FATHER MEURON'S TALE , . . .33
in. FATHER BRENT'S TALE. . . 53
IV. THE FATHER RECTOR'S TALE . .71
v. FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE . 91
VI. FATHER BIANCHl'S TALE . , . .139
VII. FATHER JENKS' TALE . . . 153
viii. FATHER MARTIN'S TALE . . .171
ix. MR. BOSANQUET'S TALE . . 191
X. FATHER MADDOX'S TALE . . .217
xi. FATHER MACCLESFIELD'S TALE . 237
xn. FATHER STEIN'S TALE . . .253
xin. MR. PERCIVAL'S TALE . . . 265
XIV. MY OWN TALE 285
Most of the Stories in this volume have
already appeared in the Ecclesiastical
Review; one of them in the Catholic
Fireside. They are printed here by the
kind permission of the Editors.
R. H. B.
Prologue
MAINTAIN," said Monsignor with a brisk
air of aggressiveness and holding his pipe
a moment from his mouth, " I maintain
that agnosticism is the only reasonable position
in these matters. Your common agnostic is no
agnostic at all ; he is the most dogmatic of
sectarians. He declares that such things do
not happen, or that they can be explained
always on a materialistic basis. Now your
Catholic "
Father Bianchi bristled, and rolled his black
eyes fiercely. If he had had a moustache he
would have twirled it.
We were sitting in the upstairs sala of the
presbytery attached to the Canadian Church of
S. Filippo in Rome. It had been a large comfort-
less room, stone-floored, stone-walled and plaster-
ceilinged, but it had been made possible by
numerous rugs, a number of armchairs and an
English fireplace. Above, in the cold plaster,
dingy flesh-coloured gods and nymphs attempted
to lounge on cotton clouds with studied ease,
2 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
looking down dispiritedly upon seven priests and
myself, a layman, who sat in a shallow semi-
circle round the red logs. In '71 the house had
fallen into secular hands, whence issued the gods
and nymphs, but in '97 the Church had come by
her own again, and had not yet banished Olympus.
There was no need to annihilate the conquered.
In the centre sat the Father Rector, a placid
old man, and round about him were the rest of
us Monsignor Maxwell, a French priest, an
English, an Italian, a Canadian, a German and
myself. This was five years ago. I do not know
where these people are now; one I think is in
heaven, two I should suppose in purgatory, four
on earth. In spite of my feelings towards Padre
Bianchi, I should assign him to purgatory. He
made a good death two years later in the Naples
epidemic.
We had begun at supper by discussing modern
miracles. The second nocturn had furnished the
text to the mouth of Monsignor, and we had
passed on by natural channels to levitation, table-
turning, family curses, ghosts and banshees. The
Italian was sceptical and scornful. Such things
in his opinion did not take place ; he excepted
only the incidents recorded in the lives of the
saints. I did not mind his scepticism (that, after
PROLOGUE 3
all, injures no one but the sceptic) ; but scorn
and contumely is another matter, and I was glad
that Canon Maxwell had taken him in hand, for
that priest has a shrewd and acrid tongue, and
wears purple, besides, round his person and on his
buttons, so he speaks with authority.
" You have some tale then, no doubt,
Monsignor ? " sneered the Italian.
The Englishman smiled with tight lips.
" Every one has," he said briefly. " Even
you, Padre Bianchi, if you will but tell it."
The other shook his head indulgently.
" I will swear," he said, " that none here has
such a tale at first-hand."
It was Father Meuron's turn to bristle.
" But yes I " he exclaimed.
Canon Maxwell drew on his pipe a moment or
two and regarded the fire.
" I have a proposition to make," he said.
" Father Bianchi is right. I have one tale, and
Father Meuron has another. With the Father
Rector's permission we will tell our tales, one each
night. On Sunday two or three of us are supping
at the French College, so that shall be holiday,
and by Monday night these other gentlemen will,
no doubt, have remembered experiences even
Father Bianchi, I believe. And Mr. Benson
4 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
shall write them down, if he wishes to, and make
an honest penny or two if he can get any
publisher to take the book."
I hastened to express my approval of the
scheme.
The Father Rector moved in his chair.
" That will be very amusing, Monsignor. I
am entirely in favour of it, though I doubt my
own capacity. I propose that Canon Maxwell
takes the chair."
" Then I understand that all will contribute
one story," said Monsignor briskly, " on those
terms "
There was a chorus of assent.
" One moment, Monsignor," interrupted Father
Brent. " Would it not be worth while to have
a short discussion first as to the whole affair ?
I must confess that my own ideas are not clear."
" Well," said Monsignor shortly, " on what
point ? "
The younger priest mused a moment.
" It is like this," he said. " Half at least of
the stories one hears have no point no reason.
Take the ordinary haunted house tale, or the
appearances at the time of death. Now what
is the good of all that ? They tell us nothing ;
they don't generally ask for prayers. It is just
PROLOGUE 5
a white woman wringing her hands, or a groaning,
or something. At the best one only finds a
skeleton behind the panelling. Now my story, if
I tell it, has absolutely no point at all."
" No point ! " said Monsignor ; " you mean
that you don't understand the point, or that no
one does ? Is that it ? "
" Well, yes ; but there is more too. How do
you square these things with purgatory ? How
can spirits go wandering about, and be so futile
at the end of it too ? Then why is everything
so vague ? Why don't they give us a hint I'm not
wanting precise information but a kind of hint
of the way things go ? Then the whole thing is
mixed up with such childish nonsense. Look
at the spiritualists, and the tambourine business,
and table-rapping. Either those things are true,
even if they're diabolical and in that case people
in the spiritual world seem considerably sillier
even than people in this or they're not true ;
and in that case the whole thing is so fraudulent
that it seems useless to inquire. Do you see my
point ? "
" I see about twenty," said Monsignor. " And
'it would take all night to answer them. But let
me take two. Firstly, I am entirely willing to
allow that half the stories one hears are fraudulent
6 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
or hysterical ; I'm quite ready to allow that.
But it seems to me that there remain a good many
others ; and if one doesn't accept those to some
extent, I don't know what becomes of the value
of human evidence. Now one of your points, I
take it, is that even these seem generally quite
pointless and useless ? Is that it ? "
" More or less," said Father Brent.
" Well, first, I would say this. It seems
perfectly clear that these other stories aren't sent
to help our faith, or anything like that. I don't
believe that for one instant. We have got all we
need in the Catholic Church, and the moral wit-
ness, and the rest. But what I don't understand
in your position is this What earthly right have
you got to think that they're sent just for your
benefit ? "
The other demurred.
" I don't," he said. " But I suppose they're
sent for somebody's benefit."
" Somebody still on earth, you mean ? "
" Well yes."
Monsignor leaned forward.
" My dear Father, how very provincial you
are if I may say so ! Here is this exceedingly
small earth, certainly with a very fair number
of people living on it but absolutely a mere
PROLOGUE 7
fraction of the number of intelligences that are in
existence. And all about us since we must use
that phrase is a spiritual world, compared with
which the present generation is as a family of
ants in the middle of London. Things happen
this spiritual world is crammed full of energy and
movement and affairs. . . . We know practically
nothing of it all, except those few main principles
which are called the Catholic Faith nothing else.
What conceivable right have we to demand that
the little glimpses that we seem to get sometimes
of the spiritual world are given us for our benefit
or information ? "
" Then why are they given ? "
Monsignor made a disdainful sound with closed
lips.
" My dear Father, a boy drops a piece of orange
peel into the middle of the ants* nest one day.
The ants summon a council at once and sit on it.
They discuss the lesson that is to be learned from
the orange peel : they come to the conclusion
that Buckingham Palace must be built entirely
of orange peel, and that the reason why it was
sent to them was that they were to learn that
great and important lesson."
Father Brent sat up suddenly.
" My dear Monsignor, you seem to me to strike
8 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
at the root of revelation. If we aren't to deduce
things from supernatural incidents, why should
we believe in our religion ? "
Monsignor lifted a hand.
" Next day there is slid into the ants' nest a
box divided into compartments, containing
exactly that which the ants need for the winter,
food and so forth. The ants hold another
parliament. Two-thirds of them who have deter-
mined in the last hour or two to reject the Buck-
ingham-Palace-orange-peel theory, reject this too.
All is fortuitous, they say. The orange peel
was ; therefore the box is ! "
Father Brent relapsed, smiling.
" That is all right," he said ; " I was a fool."
" One-third," continued the Canon severely,
"came to the not unreasonable conclusion that
a box which shows such evident signs of intelli-
gence, and of knowledge and care for their cir-
cumstances, proceeds from an Intelligence which
wishes them well. But there is a further schism.
Half of those who accept revelation remain agnos-
tic about most other things, and say frankly that
they don't know especially as regards the orange
peel. The other half rages on about the orange
peel ; some are inclined to think that there was no
orange peel it was no more than an hallucination.
PROLOGUE 9
Others think that there is some remarkable
lesson to be learnt from it, and these differ vio-
lently as to what the lesson is. Others, again,
regard it unintelligently and say to one another,
* Look. A piece of orange peel ! How very
beautiful and important.' '
(I laughed softly to myself. Monsignor spoke
with such earnestness. I would like him to be
my advocate if I ever get into trouble.)
" And, my dear Father," he went on, u I take
up the first position of those who accept revela-
tion, and I acknowledge the fact of the orange
peel ; but really nothing more. My religion
teaches me that there is a spiritual world of in-
definite size, and that things not only may, but
must, go on there which have nothing particular
to do with me. Every now and then I get a
glimpse of some of these things an orange pip,
at the very least. But I don't immediately
demand an explanation. It probably isn't deli-
berately meant for me at all. It has something
to do with affairs of which I know nothing, and
which manage to get on quite well without me."
Father Brent, still smiling, protested once
more.
" Very ingenious, Monsignor ; but then why
does it happen to happen to you ? "
10 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" I have not the slightest idea, any more than
I have the slightest idea why Providence made
me break a tooth this morning. I accept the
fact ; I believe that somehow it works into the
scheme. But I do not for that reason claim to
understand it. ... And as for purgatory well,
I ask you, What in the world do we know about
purgatory except that there is such a thing, and
that the souls of the faithful there detained are
assisted by our suffrages ? What conceivable
possibility is there that we should understand the
details of its management ? My dear Father, no
one in this world has a greater respect for, or
confidence in, dogmatic theology than myself ;
in fact, I may say that it is the only thing which
I do have confidence in. But I respect the limits
which it itself has laid down."
" Then you are an agnostic as regards
everything but the faith ? "
" Certainly I am. Well, possibly except mathe-
matics, too, and so is any wise man. I have my
ideas, of course, and I make guesses sometimes ;
but I really do not think that they have any
value."
There was silence a moment.
" Then there is this, too," he continued. " It
really is important to remember that the spiritual
PROLOGUE 11
world exists in another mode from that in which
the material world exists. That is where the
ant-simile breaks down. It is more as if an ant
went to the Royal Academy. ... Of course in
the faith we have an adequate and guaranteed
translation of the supernatural into the natural,
and vice versa ; and in these ghost stories, or
whatever we call them, we have a certain sort of
translation too. The Real Thing, whatever it is,
expresses itself in material terms, more or less.
But in these we have no sort of guarantee that
the translation is adequate, or that we are ade-
quate to understand it. We can try, of course ;
but we really don't know. Therefore it seems
to me that in all ghost stories the best thing is
to hear it, to satisfy ourselves that the evidence
is good or bad, and then to hold our tongues.
We don't want elaborate commentaries on what
may be, after all, an utterly corrupt text."
" But some of them do support the faith,"
put in Father Brent.
" So much the better then. But it is much
safer not to lean your weight on them. You
never can tell. Now with the faith you can."
There was another silence.
Then the Rector stood up smiling.
" Night prayers, Reverend Fathers," he said.
I
Monsignor Maxwell's Tale
I
Monsignor Maxwell's Tale
I WAS still thinking over the Canon's
remarks as I came up into the sala on the
following evening. They seemed to me
eminently sensible ; or, in other words, they
exactly represented what I had always held
myself, though I had never so expressed them
even to my own mind.
I felt some interest, therefore, in the question
as to the class to which Monsignor's own story
would be found to belong whether to that which
contains merely a series of phenomena, or to that
which appeared to corroborate the Christian
religion.
The rest of the company, with two or three
strangers, were already in their places when I
arrived ; and Monsignor was enthroned in the
centre chair, staring with a preoccupied look at
the blazing fire. The Rector was on his right.
The conversation died away at last ; there was
a shifting of attitudes. Then the Canon looked
at his watch, bending his sleek grey head sideways.
15
16 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" We have twenty minutes," he said in his terse
way. Then he crossed his buckled feet and began
without any preliminary comment.
" This happened to me in England. Naturally
I shall not mention where it took place, nor how
long ago.
" I knew a man, a Catholic from birth, of
a remarkable faith and piety. He had tried
his vocation in religion again and again, for he
seemed a born religious ; but his health had
always broken down, and he had finally married.
He had been told by his director that his vocation
was evidently to live in the world, and as a lay-
man. Whether I agree or disagree with the
latter part of his advice is not to the point, but
there was no question as to the former part of it.
The man's health simply could not stand it. But
he led a most mortified and interior life with his
wife in his London house, with a servant or two to
look after them, and was present daily at mass at
the church that I served then. His wife, too, was a
very exceptional woman, utterly devoted to her
husband, and I may say that I never paid them a
visit without being very much the better for it.
" Now he had a brother, a solicitor in a town
in the north, also a Catholic, of course,
MONSIGNOR MAXWELL'S TALE 17
never saw, but who enters very materially into
the story. We will call the brothers, if you please,
Mr. James and Mr. Herbert, though I need not
say that these were not their names.
" One morning after mass Mr. James came to
me in the sacristy and said he wished to have a
word with me, so I took him through into the
presbytery and up into my own room. I could
see that something was very much the matter
with him.
" He took a letter out and gave it me to read.
It was from his brother Mr. Herbert and
contained very sad news indeed nothing else, in
fact, than an announcement of his intention to
secede from the Church. There was a story of
a marriage difficulty, too, as there so often is in
such cases. He had fallen in love with a woman
of strong agnostic convictions, and nothing would
induce her to marry him unless he conformed to
her religion such as it was. But, to do Mr.
Herbert justice, I could see that there was a real
loss of faith as well. There were two or three
sheets filled with arguments that I could see
were real to the man or statements, perhaps,
rather than arguments against the Incarnation
and the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the
authority of the Church, and so on, and I must
18 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
confess that they were not mere clap-trap. The
woman was plainly capable and shrewd and had
been talking to him, and both his heart and his
head were seriously entangled.
" Well, I handed the letter back to Mr. James,
and said what I could, recommended a book or
two, promised to get him prayers, and so on,
but the man waved it aside.
" ' Yes, yes, Father,' he said, * I know, and 1
thank you, but I must do more than that. You
don't know what this means to me. I got the
letter yesterday at midday, and I may say that
I have done nothing but pray since, and this
morning at mass I saw a light at least, I think
so, and I want your advice.'
" He was terribly excited, his eyes were bright,
and the lines in his face deeper than I had ever
seen them, (for he was only just entering middle
age,) and the papers shook in his hands. I did
my best to quiet him, but it was no good. All
his tranquillity, which had been one of his most
striking virtues, was gone, and I could see that
his whole being was rent.
" ' You don't know what this means to me,
he said again. ' There is only one thing to be
done. I must offer myself for him.'
" Well, I didn't understand him at first, but
lis
, |
iy I
MONSIGNOR MAXWELL'S TALE 19
we talked a little, and at last I found that the
idea of mystical substitution had seized fflff his
minj. jle was persuaded that he must make
an offering of himself to God, and ask to be
allowed to bear the temptation instead of his
brother. Of course we know that that is one
the claims of the contemplative, but, to tell the
truth, I had never come across it before in my
own experience.
" Well, he didn't want my opinion upon the
doctrine, and, indeed, I was glad he didn't, for I
knew nothing about it myself, but he wanted to
know if I thought him justified in running the
risk for he seemed to take it as a matter of
course that I believed it.
" * Am I strong enough, Father ? ' he asked.
* Can I bear it ? I cannot imagine my losing
my faith,' and a smile just flickered on his mouth
and vanished again in trembling, * but but God
knows how weak I am.'
" Well, I reassured him on that point, at any
rate, and told him that, so far as his faith was
concerned, I considered it robust enough. To
tell the truth, I suppose I was a little careless,
because because " and Monsignor shifted a
little in his chair and looked round. " Well, it
was all so bewildering.
20 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Well, he soon went after that, saying that he
would tell his wife, and imploring me to get
prayers for him in his struggle, and I was left
alone to think it over.
" For the next day or two he appeared at mass
as usual, and just waited for me one morning to
tell me that he had made the offering of himself
before God. Then I had to go into the country
on some business or other, and was away from
Monday to Saturday.
" Now to tell the truth I did not think of him
very much ; I was harassed and bothered myself,
about my business, and scarcely did more than
just mention his name at the altar, and I am
ashamed to say I completely forgot to get prayers
elsewhere for his brother or himself, and I was
entirely unprepared for what was waiting for me
when I reached home on the Saturday evening."
Monsignor paused a moment or two. He was
evidently speaking with a certain difficulty. His
brisk business-like way of talking had just a tinge
of feeling in it which it generally lacked, and he
moved in his chair now and then with something
almost like nervousness. The other priests were
silent. The young Englishman was bending for-
ward in the firelight with his chin on his hands,
and old Father Stein had sat back in his chair
MONSIGNOR MAXWELL'S TALE 21
very quiet and was shading his face from the
candlelight.
" My housekeeper heard my key in the lock of
the front door," went on Canon Maxwell, " and
was waiting for me in the hall. She told me that
Mr. James* wife had sent round four times for me
that afternoon, saying she must have me at once
on my return, and that any delay might be fatal.
But it was not a case for the Last Sacraments,
apparently. I was astonished by such phrases,
but they were evidently word for word what she
had said, for my housekeeper apologized for
repeating them.
" ' There is something terribly the matter,
Father,' she said ; * the last time the servant was
crying, and said that her master was out of his
mind.'
" Well, I ran into church and told my penitents
there that they must wait, or go to my colleague,
and that I had had a sick-call and did not know
how long I should be away ; and then I ran
straight out of the church, and down to the house
which was three or four streets off. (You must
forgive my telling you this story with so many
details, but somehow it is the only way I can do
it ; it is all as vivid and clear as if it had
happened last week. . . .)
22 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" It was a November evening ; all the lamps
were lit as I passed out of the thoroughfare down
the side-road where his house was ; here the
pavements were empty, and I ran again as fast as
I could down the street and up the steps that led
to his front door. Even as I stood there out of
breath, I knew that something was seriously
wrong.
" Down in the kitchen below, as I could see
plainly through the lighted windows, the Irish
cook had been kneeling with her face hidden on
the table ; and she was now staring up at me
with her eyes red and her hair disordered, as the
peal of the bell died away. Then she was out in
the area almost screaming
" c Oh, God bless you, Father ! ' and then the
door opened, and I was in the hall.
" ' Where is he ? ' I asked the maid, all panting
with my run, and she told me, In his study,
and then I was up at the door in a moment,
knocking, and then, without waiting, I went in.
" It was one of those little back-rooms that
you see sometimes in London houses, just at the
top of the stairs that lead down to the servants'
quarters. There was a little garden at the back
of the house and a side street beyond that. The
curtains over the window had not been drawn,
MONSIGNOR MAXWELL'S TALE 23
and a lamp shone into the room from the lane
outside. But I did not understand that at the
time. I was only aware that the room was dark,
except for a pale light that lay across the floor
and wall and on the door that I closed behind me.
" But the horror of the room was beyond
anything that 1 have ever felt. It it "
Monsignor hesitated. " It was almost physical,
and yet I knew it was not, but it was the sense of
some extraordinary influence, spiritual and on the
point of " he stopped again. " You must for*
give me," he said, " but I can put it in no way but
this it seemed on the point of expressing itself
visibly or tangibly ; at any rate I felt my hair
rise slowly as I stood there, and then I leaned >
back against the door and groped for the handle." 1
Old Father Stein nodded gravely.
" I know, I know," he said in his heavy voice ;
" it was so with me at Benares."
" It was so dark at first," went on Monsignor,
" that I could see nothing but the outlines of the
furniture. There was the writing table and so
on immediately on my left, the fireplace beyond
it in the left-hand wall ; a tall bureau beside the
window, opposite me. Then I felt my hand
seized and gripped in the dark, and I looked
down, horribly startled, and saw that his wife had
.24 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
been kneeling at his prie-dieu on the right, and
had turned and clutched my hand, as she saw me
in the light of the street-lamp ; but she said
nothing, and her silence was the worst of all.
f "I looked again round the room and then sud-
denly gasped, and I must confess, nearly screamed,
>ecause, quite close to me, the man sat and stared
up at me. I had been confused as I came in,
and I believe now that I only had not seen him,
because I had taken the dark outline of his body,
and the whiteness of his face, to be a little side-
:able with papers upon it, that often stood by his
writing-place.
" Well, however that was, here was the man,
quite close to me, sitting bolt upright with the
lamplight falling on that 4 ea( Uy face, all lined as
it was, with patches of dark beneath those awful
bright eyes."
Monsignor stopped again, and I could see that
the hand on his chair-arm twitched sharply once
or twice.
Well, two or three times, I should think, I
opened my mouth to speak, and I have never
known before or since what it was, literally, not
o be able to do it. It was as if a hand gripped
y throat each time. I suppose it was a kind
of hysterical contraction of the muscles. I
MONSIGNOR MAXWELL'S TALE 25
understood then why the wife could not speak.
The only emotion I was conscious of was an insane
desire to get out of the room and the house, awayl
from that terrifying silence and oppressiveness ||
and, under God, I believe that the one thing
that kept me there was that frightful grip on my
fingers, that tightened, as if the wife read my
thoughts, even as the desire surged up.
" I stood there, I suppose, half a minute more
before I moved or spoke, and then I made a little {
motion, and drew my fingers out of hers, and I
made the sign of the cross, and even then I dared \
not speak. But the face remained still in that
tense quietness,. and the bright sunken eyes never
flinched or stirred.
" Then I dropped on my knees ; and at last,
with really an extraordinary effort, as if I was
breaking something, I managed to speak and say\
a prayer or two, the Our Father and the Hail\
Mary I could remember nothing else. Then 1 1
glanced at him quickly, and he had not stirred,
but was watching me with a kind of bitter indiffer-
ence that is all I can say of it. I went on with
the creed, finished it, said Amen, and then one
loud harsh bark of laughter broke from
and and I could swear that something
laughed
26 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
A sharp exclamation broke from Father Brent,
and a kind of sigh from the French priest, as
Monsignor suddenly sat up and struck his hand
on his knee at his last word, and my own heart
leapt and stood still, while my nerves jangled
like struck wires.
" There, there," said the Rector, " our nerves
are out of order ; be kind to us, Monsignor."
He shook his head.
"But I must tell you," he said, "though I
hardly know what words to use. . . . This other
laughter was not like his. I could not swear
that that there was a vibration of sound. It
might have been interior, but it was there ; it
was objective and external to me ... only I was
absolutely convinced that there was laughter,
neither mine, nor the man's, nor his wife's.
There ; that is all I can say of it."
He paused a moment.
" Well," he went on, " we got him upstairs at
last, and on his bed. I tell you it was a very odd
relief to get out of the room downstairs. He
had not slept, his wife whispered to me as we
went up, for four nights, not since the Monday
in fact, and had scarcely eaten either. There
was no time to hear more, for he turned round
as he walked up and looked at us as we held him,
MONSIGNOR MAXWELL'S TALE 27
and there was no more talking, with that face
before us. And there we sat beside him in his
bedroom he lay quiet with closed eyes and I
did not dare to leave him till three or four in the
morning, when I was nearly dead with weariness.
His wife made me go then, and promised to send
again if there was any change.
" Well, during the sung mass, at which I was
not officiating, the message came, and I was back
at his house directly. There had been a change ;\
he was now willing to talk. He looked ghastly, \j
but his wife told me that she thought he hadj
slept an hour or two, after I had left.
" Well, we talked, and I found that the man's J
faith wasjjone, or, perhaps it is safer to say, com-
pletely obscured. I scarcely know how to express I
it, but itwas as if he had practically no conception
of what I was talking about.
* I believed it once,' he said, * yes, I am sure
I did, but I can't imagine why or how.'
" ' Then what is all this trouble of mind about ? '
I asked.
"'Why,' he said, * why ; if it is not true,
what is left ? '
" I didn't quite see what he meant, and asked
him.
" ' You,' he said, and just touched me with his
28 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
finger, c you and I,' and he touched himself,
' and and all this,' and he tapped the table,
' and all that,' and he flung his arm out towards
the window and the chimney pots and the bustling
i thoroughfare. ' All of it all of it what does
i it all mean, what is the good of it ? '
" It was a piteous thing to see his face, the
blackness and the misery of his despair at an
empty meaningless world and a self that could
do nothing but writhe and cry in the dark.
" You see the whole thing for him stood or fell
by God, lived and moved in Him ; now God was
gone, and what was left ?
" Well, of course I reminded him of his offering
of himself to God for his brother. God had
accepted it, I told him ; and he just laughed
miserably in my face.
" ' Do you think Herbert suffered like this ? '
he asked.
" Well, I was tired and bewildered, and this
seemed to me an answer. Of course you all see
the explanation."
1" The other suffered less because his faith was
less," put in Father Brent instantly.
" Exactly," said Monsignor, " well, I am
ashamed to say I didn't see that, at least not
clearly enough to put it to him ; but I did point
MONSIGNOR'S MAXWELL'S TALE 29
out that it was of the very essence of his contract
that he should suffer severely in the very manner
in which he was suffering, and that the coinci-
dence was remarkable, and, further, that the
fact that he was in such distress, shewed that God
was something to him after all. I don't know
even then that I accepted the whole thing as
being quite real. But what else could I say ? ...
Well he smiled again at that.
" ' Have you never regretted a happy dream ? '
he said.
" Well, I am wearying you," said Monsignor,
looking at his watch, " but I am just at the end*
I went to that man every day for, I suppose, twcj
or three hours for five or six weeks, and it seemecm
practically useless. I had never realized before'
so completely that faith was a gift which can be
given or withdrawn ; that it is something
infused into us, not produced by us. Finally the
man died of congestion of the brain."
" Good Lord ! " said a voice.
" Yes," said Canon Maxwell, blowing down his
pipe, " those those were my sentiments."
" Monsignor ! Do you mean he died without
faith ? "
"Father Jenks, I gave him the sacraments. I
He asked for them. I did not press too many\\
30 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
questions ; I thought it best to leave well
alone."
" And the brother ? "
" Oh ! the brother Mr. Herbert was at the
funeral, and informed me that the marriage was
broken off, and I never heard of his apostacy.
And there was one other person who contributed
to the interest of the whole affair, and that was
/the wife."
" What happened to her ? "
(" She became a Poor Clare. She told me that
self-immolation was the only possible act for her
after what she had seen and known."
There was a long silence.
" Well, well, well," said Father Bianchi.
II
Father Meuron's Tale
II
Father Meuron's Tale
J7ATHER MEURON was very voluble at
r supper on the Saturday. He exclaimed ;
he threw out his hands ; his bright black
eyes shone above his rosy cheeks ; and his hair
appeared to stand more on end than I had ever
known it.
He sat at the farther side of the horse-shoe
table from myself, and I was able to remark on
his gaiety to the English priest who sat beside
me, without fear of being overheard.
Father Brent smiled.
44 He is drunk with la gloire," he said. 44 He
is to tell the story to-night."
This explained everything.
I did not look forward, however, to his recital.
I was confident that it would be full of tinsel and
swooning maidens who ended their days in con-
vents under Father Meuron's spiritual direction ;
and when he came upstairs I found a shadowy
corner, a little back from the semi-circle, where
I could fall asleep, if I wished, without provoking
remark.
34 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
In fact I was totally unprepared for the
character of his narrative.
When we had all taken our places and Mon-
signor's pipe was properly alight, and himself at
full length in his deck-chair, the Frenchman
began. He told his story in his own language ;
but I am venturing to render it in English as
nearly as I am able.
" My contribution to the histories," he began,
seated in his upright arm-chair in the centre of
the circle, a little turned away from me " My
contribution to the histories which these good
priests are to recite, is an affair of exorcism.
That is a matter with which we who live in Europe
are not familiar in these days. It would seem,
I suppose, that grace has a certain power, accumu-
lating through the centuries, of saturating even
physical objects with its force. However men
may rebel, yet the sacrifices offered and the
prayers poured out have a faculty of holding
Satan in check, and preventing his more formid-
able manifestations. Even in my own poor
country at this hour, in spite of widespread apos-
tacy, in spite even of the deliberate worship of
Satan, yet grace is in the air ; and it is seldom,
indeed, that a priest has to deal with a case of
FATHER MEURON'S TALE
35
possession. In your respectable England, too,
it is the same ; the simple piety of Protestants
has kept alive to some extent the force of the
Gospel. Here in this country it is somewhat
different. The old powers have survived the
Christian assault, and while they cannot live in
holy Rome, there are corners where they do so."
From my place I saw Padre Bianchi turn a
furtive eye upon the speaker, and I thought I
read in it an unwilling assent.
" However," went on the Frenchman, with a
superb dismissory gesture, " my recital does not
concern this continent, but the little island of
La Souffridre. There circumstances are other
than here. It was a stronghold of darkness when,
I was there in '19. Grace, while laying hold oft
men's hearts, had not yet penetrated the lower i
creation. Do you understand me ? There were
many holy persons whom I knew, who frequented
the Sacraments and lived devoutly, but there
were many of another manner. The ancient}
rites survived secretly amongst the negroes, and;
darkness how shall I say it ? dimness made J
itself visible.
" However, to our history "
The priest resettled himself in his chair and
laid his fingers together like precious instruments.
36 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
He was enjoying himself vastly, and I could see
that he was preparing himself for a revelation.
" It was in '91," he repeated, " that I went
there with another of our Fathers to the mission-
house. I will not trouble you, gentlemen, with
recounting the tale of our arrival, nor of the months
that followed it, except perhaps to tell you that
I was astonished by much that I saw. Never
until that time had I seen the power of the Sacra-
Jments so evident. In civilized lands, as I have
(suggested to you, the air is charged with grace.
Each is no more than a wave in the deep sea. He
who is without God's favour is not without His
grace at each breath he draws. There are
churches, religious, pious persons about him ;
there are centuries of prayers behind him. The
very buildings he enters, as M. Huysmans has
explained to us, are browned by prayer. Though
a wicked child, he is yet in his Father's house :
and the return from death to life is not such a
crossing of the abyss, after all. But there in
La Souffriere all is either divine or satanic, black
!* or white, Christian or devilish. One stands as it
were on the sea shore to watch the breakers of
grace ; and each is a miracle. I tell you I have
seen holy catechumens foam at the mouth and
roll their eyes in pain, as the saving water fell
FATHER MEURON'S TALE 37
on them, and that which was within went out. |
As the Gospel relates, * Spiritus conturbavit \
ilium : et elisus in tenant, volutabatur spumans.' " 4
Father Meuron paused again.
I was interested to hear this corroboration of
evidence that had come before me on other
occasions. More than one missionary had told
me the same thing ; and I had found in their
tales a parallel to those related by the first
preachers of the Christian religion in the early
days of the Church.
" I was incredulous at first," continued the
priest, " until I saw these things for myself. An
old father of our mission rebuked me for it.
* You are an ignorant fellow,' he said, * your airs
are still of the seminary.' And what he said was
just, my friends.
" On one Monday morning as we met for our
council, I could see that this old priest had some-
thing to say. M. Lasserre was his name. He
kept very silent until the little businesses had
been accomplished, and then he turned to the
Father Rector.
" * Monseigneur has written,' he said, * and
given me the necessary permission for the matter
you know, my father. And he bids me take
38 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
another priest with me . I ask that Father Meuron
may accompany me. He needs a lesson, this
zealous young missionary.'
" The Father Rector smiled at me, as I sat
astonished, and nodded at Father Lasserre to
give permission.
" ' Father Lasserre will explain all to you,' he
said, as he stood up for the prayer.
" The good priest explained all to me as the
Father Rector had directed.
" It appeared that there was a matter of exorcism
on hand. A woman who lived with her mother
and husband had been afflicted by the devil,
Father Lasserre said. She was a catechumen,
and had been devout for several months and all
seemed well, until this this assault had been
made on her soul. Father Lasserre had visited
the woman and examined her, and had made
his report to the bishop, asking permission to
exorcise the creature, and it was this permission
that had been sent on that morning.
" I did not venture to tell the priest that he
was mistaken and that the affair was one of
epilepsy. I had studied a little in books for my
medical training, and all that I heard now seemed
to confirm me in the diagnosis. There were the
symptoms, easy to read. What would you
FATHER MEURON'S TALE 39
have ? " the priest again made bis little gesture
" I knew more in my youth than all the Fathers
of the Church. Their affairs of devils were
nothing but an affection of the brain, dreams
and fancies ! And if the exorcisms had appeared
to be of direct service to such folk, it was from
the effect of the solemnity upon the mind. It
was no more."
He laughed with a fierce irony.
" You know it all, gentlemen ! "
I had lost all desire to sleep now. The French
priest was more interesting than I had thought.
His elaborateness seemed dissipated ; his voice
trembled a little as he arraigned his own conceit,
and I began to wonder how his change of mind
had been wrought.
" We set out that afternoon," he continued.
" The woman lived on the farther side of the
island, perhaps a couple of hours' travel, for it
was rough going ; and as we went up over the
path, Father Lasserre told me more.
" It seemed that the woman blasphemed.
(The subconscious self, said I to myself, as
M. Charcot has explained. It is her old habit
reasserting itself.)
" She foamed and rolled her eyes. (An
affection of the brain, said I.)
40 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" She feared holy water : they dared not throw
it on her, her struggles were so fierce. (Because
she has been taught to fear it, said I.)
" And so the good father talked, eyeing me
now and again ; and I smiled in my heart, know-
ing that he was a simple old fellow who had not
studied the new books.
>" She was quieter after sunset, he told me, and
ould take a little food then. Her fits came on
tier for the most part at midday. And I smiled
again at that. Why it should be so, I knew.
The heat affected her. She would be quieter,
science would tell us, when evening fell. If it
were the power of Satan that held her, she would
surely rage more in the darkness than in the light.
The Scriptures tell us so.
" I said something of this to Father Lasserre,
as if it were a question, and he looked at me.
" ' Perhaps, brother,' he said, ' she is more at
ease in the darkness and fears the light, and
that she is quieter therefore when the sun
Sets.'
" Again I smiled to myself. What piety ! said
I, and what foolishness !
" The house where the three lived stood apart
from any others. It was an old shed into which
they had moved a week before, for the neighbours
FATHER MEURON'S TALE 41
could no longer bear the woman's screaming.
And we came to it toward sunset.
" It was a heavy evening, dull and thick, and
as we pushed down the path I saw the smoking
mountain high on the left hand between the
tangled trees. There was a great silence round
us, and no wind, and every leaf against the angry
sky was as if cut of steel.
" We saw the roof below us presently, and a
little smoke escaped from a hole, for there was no
chimney.
" ' We will sit here a little, brother,' said my
friend. * We will not enter till sunset.'
" And he took out his Office book and began
to say his Matins and Lauds, sitting on a fallen t
tree trunk by the side of the path.
" All was very silent about us. I suffered
terrible distractions, for I was a young man and
excited ; and though I knew it was no more than
epilepsy that I was to see, yet epilepsy is not a
good sight to regard. But I was finishing the
first nocturn when I saw that Father Lasserre
was looking off his book.
" We were sitting thirty yards from the roof
of the hut which was built in a scoop of the ground,
so that the roof was level with the ground on
which we sat. Below it was a little open space,
42 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
flat, perhaps twenty yards across, and below
that yet farther was the wood again, and far over
that was the smoke of the village against the
sea. There was the mouth of a well with a bucket
f beside it ; and by this was standing a man, a
negro, very upright, with a vessel in his hand.
" This fellow turned as I looked, and saw us
there, and he dropped the vessel, and I could see
his white teeth. Father Lasserre stood up and
laid his finger on his lips, nodded once or twice,
pointed to the west where the sun was just above
the horizon, and the fellow nodded to us again
and stooped for his vessel.
" He filled it from the bucket and went back
into the house.
" I looked at Father Lasserre, and he looked
at me.
' In five minutes,' he said. * That is the
j husband. Did you not see his wounds ? '
" I had seen no more than his teeth, I said, and
my friend nodded again and proceeded to finish
'his nocturn."
Again Father Meuron paused dramatically.
His ruddy face seemed a little pale in the candle-
light, although he had told us nothing yet that
could account for his apparent horror. Plainly
something was coming soon.
FATHER MEURON'S TALE 43
The Rector leaned back to me and whispered
behind his hand in reference to what the French-
man had related a few minutes before, that no
priest was allowed to use exorcism without the
special leave of the bishop. I nodded and
thanked him.
Father Meuron flashed his eyes dreadfully round
the circle, clasped his hands and continued :
" When the sun showed only a red rim above
the sea we went down to the house. The path
ran on high ground to the roof, and then dipped
down the edge of the cutting past the window to
the front of the shed.
" I looked through this window sideways as
I went after Father Lasserre who was carrying
his bag with the book and the holy water, but I
could see nothing but the light of the fire. And
there was no sound. That was terrible to me !
" The door was closed as we came to it, and as
Father Lasserre lifted his hand to knock there was
the howl of a beast from within.
" He knocked and looked at me.
' It is but epilepsy,* he said, and his lips
wrinkled as he said it."
The priest stopped again, and smiled ironically
at us all. Then he clasped his hands beneath
his chin, like a man in terror.
44 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" I will not tell you all that I saw," he went
on, "when the candle was lighted and set on the
table ; but only a little. You would not dream
well, my friends as I did not that night.
" But the woman sat in a corner by the
fireplace, bound with cords by her arms to
the back of the chair, and her feet to the legs
of it.
" Gentlemen, she was like no woman at all.
The howl of a wolf came from her lips, but there
were words in the howl. At first I could not
understand, till she began in French and then
I understood My God !
" The foam dripped from her mouth like water,
and her eyes But there ! I began to shake
when I saw them until the holy water was
spilled on the floor, and I set it down on the table
by the candle. There was a plate of meat on
the table, roasted mutton, I think, and a loaf of
bread beside it. Remember that, gentlemen !
That mutton and bread ! And as I stood there,
I told myself, like making acts of faith, that it
was but epilepsy, or at the most matlness.
" My friends, it is probable that few of you
know the form of exorcism. It is neither in the
Ritual nor the Pontifical, and I cannot remember
it all myself. But it began thus."
FATHER MEURON'S TALE 45
The Frenchman sprang up and stood with his
hack to the fire, with his face in shadow.
" Father Lasserre was here where I stand, in
his cotta and stole, and I beside him. There
where my chair stands was the square table, as
near as that, with the bread and meat and the
holy water and the candle. Beyond the table
was the woman ; her husband stood beside her
on the left hand, and the old mother was there "
he flung out a hand to the right " on the floor !
telling her beads and weeping but weeping !
" When the Father was ready and had said a
word to the others, he signed to me to lift the
holy water again she was quiet at the moment
and then he sprinkled her.
" As he lifted his hand she raised her eyes,
and there was a look in them of terror, as if at a
blow, and as the drops fell she leapt forward in
the chair, and the chair leapt with her. Her
husband was at her and dragged the chair back.
But, my God ! it was terrible to see him, his teeth
shone as if he smiled, but the tears ran down his
face.
" Then she moaned like a child in pain. It was
as if the holy water burned her ; she lifted her
face to her man as if she begged him to wipe off
the drops.
A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" And all the while I still told myself that it
was the terror of her mind only at the holy water
that it could not be that she was possessed by Satan
it was but madness madness and epilepsy!
" Father Lasserre went on with the prayers,
and I said Amen, and there was a psalm Deus
in nomine tuo salvum me fac and then came the
first bidding to the unclean spirit to go out, in
the name of the Mysteries of the Incarnation and
Passion.
" Gentlemen, I swear to you that something
happened then, but I do not know what. A
confusion fell on me and a kind of darkness. I
saw nothing it was as if I were dead."
The priest lifted a shaking hand to wipe off
the sweat from his forehead. There was a
profound silence in the room. I looked once at
Monsignor and he was holding his pipe an inch
off his mouth, and his lips were slack and open
as he stared.
" Then when I knew where I was, Father
Lasserre was reading out of the Gospels ; how
our Lord gave authority to His Church to cast
out unclean spirits ; and all the while his voice
never trembled."
" And the woman ? " said a voice hoarsely
from Father Brent's chair.
FATHER MEURON'S TALE 47
" Ah ! the woman ! My God I I do not
know. I did not look at her. I stared at the
plate on the table ; but at least she was not
crying out now.
"When the Scripture was finished, Father
Lasserre gave me the book.
"'Bah! Father!' he said. * It is but
epilepsy, is it not ? '
" Then he beckoned me, and I went with him
holding the book till we were within a yard of
the woman. But I could not hold the book still,
it shook, it shook "
Father Meuron thrust out his hand " It
shook like that, gentlemen.
" He took the book from me, sharply and
angrily. ' Go back, sir,' he said, and he thrust
the book into the husband's hand.
" ' There/ he said.
'* I went back behind the table and leaned on it.
" Then Father Lasserre My God ! the cour-
age of this man ! he set his hands on the woman's
head. She writhed up her teeth to bite, but^xe
was too strong for her, and then he cried out from
the book the second bidding to the unclean spirit.
" ' Ecce crucem Domini /Behold the Cross of
the Lord ! Flee, ye adverse hosts ! The lion of
the tribe of Judah hath prevailed ! '
48 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Gentlemen " the Frenchman flung out his
hands " I who stand here tell you that some-
thing happened God knows what I only know
this, that as the woman cried out and scrambled
with her feet on the floor, the flame of the candJe
became smoke-coloured for one instant. I told
myself it was the dust of her struggling and her
foul breath. Yes, gentlemen, as you tell your-
selves now. Bah ! it is but epilepsy, is it not so,
sir ? "
The old Rector leaned forward with a depre-
cating hand, but the Frenchman glared and
gesticulated ; there was a murmur from the room,
and the old priest leaned back again and propped
his head on his hand.
" Then there was a prayer. I heard Or emus,
but I did not dare to look at the woman. I fixed
my eyes so, on the bread and meat : it was the
one clean thing in that terrible room. I whis-
pered to myself, * Bread and mutton, bread and
mutton.' I thought of the refectory at home
anything you understand me, gentlemen,
anything familiar to quiet myself.
" Then there was the third exorcism."
I saw the Frenchman's hands rise and fall,
clenched, and his teeth close on his lip to stay its
FATHER MEURON'S TALE 49
trembling. He swallowed in his throat once or
twice.
" Gentlemen, I swear to you by God Almighty
that this was what I saw. I kept my eyes on the
bread and meat. It lay there, beneath my eyes,
and yet I saw too the good Father Lasserre lean
forward to the woman again, and heard him begin,
* Exorcizo U? . . .
" And then this happened this happened . . .
" The bread and the meat corrupted themselves
to worms before my eyes "
Father Meuron dashed forward, turned round,
and dropped into his chair as the two English
priests on either side sprang to their feet.
In a few minutes he was able to tell us that
all had ended well ; that the woman had been
presently found in her right mind, after an
incident or two that I will take leave to omit ;
and that the apparent paroxysm of nature that
had accompanied the words of the third exorcism
had passed away as suddenly as it had come.
Then we went to night-prayers and fortified
ourselves against the dark.
Ill
Father Brent's Tale
Ill
Father Brent's Tale
IT was universally voted on Monday that the
Englishman should follow Father Meuron,
and we looked with some satisfaction on
his wholesome face and steady blue eyes, as he
took up his tale after supper.
" Mine is a very poor story," he began, " after
the one we heard on Saturday, and, what is worse,
there is no explanation that I have ever heard
that seemed to me adequate. Perhaps some one
will supply one this evening. I feel very much
like the ant in London whom Monsignor has such
sympathy with."
He drew at his cigarette, smiling, and we settled
ourselves down with looks of resolute science on
our features. I at least was conscious of wishing
to wear one.
" After my ordination to the subdiaconate I
was in England for the summer and went down
to stay with a friend on the Fal, at the beginning
of October.
53
54 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" My friend's house stood on a spot of land
running out into the estuary ; there was a beech-
wood behind it and on either side. There was
a small embankment on which the building
actually stood, of which the sea-wall ran straight
down on to the rocks, so that at high tide the
water came half-way up the stonework. There
was a large smoking-room looking the same way,
and a little paved path separated its windows
from the low wall.
" We had a series of very warm days when I
was there, and after dinner we would sit outside
in the dark and listen to the water lapping below.
There was another house on the further side of
the river, about half-a-mile away, and we could
see its lights sometimes. About three miles up
stream that is, on our right lay Truro, and
Falmouth, as far as I remember, about four miles
to the left. But we were entirely cut off from our
neighbours by the beechwoods all round us, and,
except for the house opposite, might have been
clean out of civilization."
Father Brent tossed away his cigarette and lit
another.
He seemed a very sensible person, I thought,
unlike the excitable Frenchman, and his manner
of speaking was serene and practical.
FATHER BRENTS TALE 55
" My friend was a widower," he went on, " but
had one boy, about eleven years old, who, I
remember, was to go to school after Christmas.
I asked Franklyn, my friend, why Jack had not
gone before, and he told me, as parents will, that
he was a peculiarly sensitive boy, a little hysterical
at times and very nervous, but he was less so
than he used to be and probably, his father said,
if he was allowed time, school would be the best
thing for him. Up to the present, however, he
had shrunk from sending him.
" ' He has extraordinary fancies,' he said,
' and thinks he sees things. The other day
and then Jack came in, and he stopped, and I
clean forgot to ask him afterwards what he was
going to say.
" Now if any one here has ever been to Corn-
wall, he will know what a queer county it is. It
is cram-full of legends and so on. Every one
who has ever been there seems to have left his
mark. You get the Phoenicians in goodness
knows what century ; they came there for tin,
and some of the mines still in work are supposed
to have been opened by them. Cornish cream
too seems to have been brought there by them
for I need not tell you perhaps that the stuff is
originally Cornish and not Devon . Then Solomon ,
56 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
some think, sent ships there though personally
I believe that is nonsense ; but you get some
curious names Marazion, for instance, which
means the bitterness of Zion. That has made
some believe that the Cornish are the lost tribes.
Then you get a connexion with both Ireland and
Brittany in names, language, and beliefs, and so
on I could go on for ever. They still talk of
' going to England ' when they cross the border
into Devonshire.
" Then the people are very odd real Celts
with a genius for religion and the supernatural
generally. They believe in pixies ; they have
got a hundred saints and holy wells and holy
trees that no one else has ever heard of. They
have the most astonishing old churches. There
is one convent at Lanherne I think where the
Blessed Sacrament has remained with its light
burning right up to the present. And lastly,
all the people are furious Wesleyans.
" So the whole place is a confusion of history,
a sort of palimpsest, as the Father Rector here
would tell us. A cross you find in the moor may
be pagan, or Catholic, or Anglican, or most likely
all three together. And that is what makes an
explanation of what I am going to tell you such
a difficult thing.
FATHER BRENT'S TALE 57
" I did not know much about this when I went
there on the third of October, but Franklyn told
me a lot, and he took me about to one or two
places here and there to Truro to see the new
Cathedral, to Perranzabuloe where there is an old
mystery theatre and a church in the sands, and
so on. And one day we rowed down to Falmouth.
' The estuary is a lovely place when the tide
is in. You find the odd combination of seaweed
and beech trees growing almost together. The
trees stand with their roots in saltish water, and
the creeks run right up into the woods. But it
is terrible when the tide is out great sheets of
mud, with wreckage sticking up, and draggled
weed, and mussels, and so on.
" About the end of my first week it was high
tide after dinner, and we sat out on the terrace
looking across the water. We could hear it
lapping below, and the moon was just coming up
behind the house. I tossed over my cigarette
end and heard it fizz in the water, and then I
put out my hand to the box for another. There
wasn't one : and Franklyn said he would go
indoors to find some. He thought he had some
Nestors in his bedroom.
" So Franklyn went in and I was left alone,
" It was perfectly quiet : there was not a
58 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
ripple on the water, which was about eight feet
below me, as I got up from my chair and sat on
the low wall. There was a sort of glimmer on
the water from the moon behind, and I could see
a yellow streak clean across the surface from the
house opposite among the black woods. It was
as warm as summer too/*
Father Brent threw his cigarette away, and
sat a little forward in his chair. I began to feel
more interested. He was plainly interested him-
self, for he clasped his hands round a knee, and
gave a quick look into our faces. Then he looked
back again at the fire as he went on.
" Then across the streak of yellow light and
where the moon glimmered, I saw a kind of black
line, moving. It was coming toward me, and
there seemed to be a sort of disturbance behind.
I stood up and waited, wondering what it was. I
could hear Franklyn pulling out a drawer in the
bedroom overhead, but everything else was
deadly still.
" As I stood, it came nearer swiftly ; it was
just a high ripple in the water, and a moment
later the flat surface below heaved up, and I could
hear it lapping and splashing on the face of the
wall.
FATHER BRENT'S TALE 59
" It was exactly as if some big ship had gone
up the estuary. I strained my eyes out, but
there was nothing to be seen. There was the
glimmer of the moon on the water, the house-
lights burning half-a-mile away, and the black
woods beyond. There was a beach, rocks, and
shingle on my right, curving along toward a place
called Meopas ; and I could hear the wave hiss
and clatter all along it as it went up-stream.
" Then I sat down again.
" I cannot say I was exactly frightened ; but
I was very much puzzled. It surely could not
be a tidal wave ; there was certainly no ship ;
it could not be anything swimming, for the wave
was like the wave of a really large vessel.
" In a minute or two Franklyn came down with
the Nestors, and I told him. He laughed at me.
He said it must have been a breeze, or the turn
of the tide, or something. Then he said he had
been in to look at Jack, and had found him in a
sort of nightmare, tossing and moaning ; he had
not wakened him, he said, but just touched him
and said a word or two, and the boy had turned
over and gone to sleep.
" But I would not let him change the subject.
I persisted it had been a really big wash of some
kind.
60 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" He stared at me.
" ' Take a cigarette/ he said, ' I found them
at last under a hat/
" But I went on at him. It had made an
impression on me, and I was a little uncomfortable.
" ' It is bosh/ he said. ' But we will go and
see if you like. The wall will be wet if there was
a big wave/
" He fetched a lantern, and we went down the
steps that led round the side of the embankment
into the water. I went first, until my feet were
on the last step above the water. He carried the
lantern.
" Then I heard him exclaim :
" ' You are standing in a pool/ he said.
" I looked down and saw that it was so ; the
steps, three of them at least, were shining in the
light of the lantern.
" I put out my hand for the lantern, held on
to a ring by my left hand, and leaned out as far
as I could, looking at the face of the wall. It was
wet and dripping for at least four feet above the
mark of the high-tide.
" I told him, and he came down and looked
too, and then we went up again to the house.
" We neither of us said very much more that
evening. The only suggestion that Franklyn
FATHER BRENTS TALE
61
could make was that it must have been a very odd
kind of tidal wave. For myself, I knew nothing
about tidal waves ; but I gathered from his tone
that this certainly could not have been one.
" We sat out about half-an-hour more, but
there was no sound again.
" When we went up to bed we peeped into
Jack's room. He was lying perfectly quiet on
his right side, turned away from the window
which was open, but there was a little frown, I
thought, on his forehead, and his eyes seemed
screwed up."
The priest stopped again.
We were all very quiet. The story was not
exciting, but it was distinctly interesting, and I
could see the others were puzzled. Perhaps
what impressed us most was the very matter-of-
fact tone in which the story was told.
The Rector put in a word during the silence.
" How do you know it was not a tidal wave ? "
he asked.
" It may have been, Father," said the young
priest. " But that is not the end."
He filled his lungs with smoke, blew it out, and
went on.
Nothing whatever of any interest happened
62 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
for the next day or two, except that Franklyn
asked a boatman at Meopas whether he had heard
anything of a wave on the Monday night. The
man looked at us and shook his head, still looking
at us oddly.
' I was in bed early/ he said.
" On the Thursday afternoon Franklyn got
a note asking him to dine in Truro, to meet some
one who had come down from town. I told him
to go, of course, and he went off in his dog-cart
about half-past six.
" Jack and I dined together at half-past seven,
and, I may say, we made friends. He was less
shy when his father was away. I think Franklyn
laughed at him a little too much, hoping to cure
him of his fancies.
" The boy told me some of them, though, that
night. I don't remember any of them particu-
larly, but I do remember the general effect, and
I was really impressed by the sort of insight he
seemed to have into things. He said some curious
things about trees and their characters. Perhaps
you remember MacDonald's Phantasies. It
was rather like that. He was fond of beeches, I
gathered, and thought himself safe in them ; he
liked to climb them and to think that the house
FATHER BRENTS TALE 63
was surrounded by them. And there was a lot
of things like that he said. I remember too that
he hated cypresses and cats and the twilight.
" ' But I am not afraid of the dark/ he said.
' I like the dark as much as the light, and I always
sleep with my windows open and no curtains/ '
Monsignor Maxwell nodded abruptly. I could
see he was watching.
" I know," he said. " I knew another child
like that."
" Well," went on Father Brent, " the boy said
good-night and went to bed about nine. I sat
in the smoking-room a bit, for it had turned a
little cold, and about ten stepped out onto the
terrace.
" It was perfectly still and cloudy. I forget
whether there was a moon. At any rate I did
not see it. There was just the black gulf of water,
with the line of light across it from the house
opposite. Then I went indoors and shut the
windows.
" I read again for a while, and finished my
book. I had said my Office, so I looked about
for another novel. Then I remembered there
had been one I wanted to read in Franklyn's
room overhead, so I took a candle and went up.
Jack's room was over the smoking-room, and his
64 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
father's was beyond it on the right, and there
was a door between them. Both faced the front,
remember.
" Franklyn's room had three windows, two
looking on to the river and one up-stream toward
Truro, over the beach I spoke of before. I went
in there ; and saw that the door was open
between the two rooms, so I slipped off my shoes
for fear of disturbing the boy, and went across
to the bookshelf that stood between the two
front windows. All three windows were open.
Franklyn was mad about fresh air."
" I was bending down to look at the backs of
the books, and had my finger on the one I wanted
when I heard a kind of moan from the boy's room.
" I stood up, startled, and it came again.
Why, he had had a nightmare only three days
before, I remembered. As I stood there wonder-
ing whether it would be kind to wake him, I
heard another sound.
" It was a noise that came through the side
window that looked up the beach, and it was the
noise of a breaking wave."
The priest made a momentary pause, and, as
he flicked the end of his cigarette, I saw his fingers
tremble very slightly.
" I didn't hesitate then, but went straight into
FATHER BRENTS TALE 65
the room next door, and as I went across
the floor heard the boy moaning and tossing.
It was pitch dark and I could see nothing.
I was thinking that tidal waves don't come
down-stream.
" Then my knees struck the edge of the bed.
" ' Jack,' I said, ' Jack.'
" There was a rustle from the bed-clothes, and
(I should have thought) long before he could
have awakened, I heard his feet on the floor, and
then felt him brush past me. Then I saw him
outlined against the pale window with his hands
on the glass over his head. Then I was by him,
taking care not to touch him.
" All this took about five seconds, I suppose,
from the time when I heard the wave on the beach.
I stared out now over the boy's head, but there
was nothing in the world to be seen but the black
water and the glimmer of the light across it.
" Jack was perfectly silent, but I could see that
he was watching. He didn't seem to know I
was there.
" Then I whispered to him rather sharply.
11 ' What is it, Jack ? What do you see ? '
" He said nothing, and I repeated my question.
" Then he answered, almost as if talking to
himself : ' Ships,' he said, ' three ships.'
66 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Now I swear there was nothing there. I
thought it was a nightmare.
" ' Nonsense/ I said. ' How can you see
them ? It's too dark.'
' A light in each/ he said, ' in the bows
blazing ! '
" As he said it I saw his head turning slowly to
the left as if he was following them. Then there
came the sound of the wave breaking on the
stonework just below the windows.
" ' Are you frightened ? ' I said suddenly.
" ' Yes/ said the boy.
" ' Why ? '
" ' I don't know/
" Then I saw his hands come down from the
window and cover his face, and he began to moan
again.
' Come back to bed/ I said, but I daren't
touch him. I could see he was sleep-walking.
" Then he turned, went straight across the
room, still making an odd sound, and I heard him
climb into bed.
" I covered him up, and went out."
Father Brent stopped again. He had rather
a curious look in his face, and I saw that his
cigarette had gone out. None of us spoke or
moved.
FATHER BRENT'S TALE 67
Then he went on again, abruptly :
" Well, you know, I didn't know I was frightened
exactly until I came out onto the landing. There
was a tall glass there on the right hand of the
staircase, and just as I came opposite I thought
I heard the hiss of the wave again, and I nearly
screamed. It was only the wheels of Franklyn's
dog-cart coming up the drive, but as I looked in
the glass I saw that my face was like paper. We
had a long talk about the Phoenicians that even-
ing. Franklyn looked them out in the Encyclo-
paedia, but there was nothing particularly
interesting.
" Well, that's all. Give me a match, Father.
This beastly thing's gone out. It's a spaghetto."
We had no theories to suggest. Monsignor was
temerarious enough to remark that the story was
an excellent illustration of his own views.
IV
The Father Rector's Story
IV
The Father Rector's Story
THE Father Rector of San Filippo was an
old man, a Canadian by birth, who had
been educated in England, but he had
worked in many parts of the world since
receiving the priesthood nearly fifty years ago,
and for my part I certainly expected that he
would have many experiences to relate.
At first, however, he entirely refused to tell
a story. He said he had had an uneventful life,
that he could not compete with the tales he had
heard. But persuasion proved too strong, and
on going in to see him on another matter one
morning I found him at his tin dispatch-box with
a diary in his hand.
" I have found something that I think may do,"
he said, " if no one else has promised for this
evening. It is really the only thing approaching
the preternatural I have ever experienced."
I congratulated him and ourselves ; and the
same evening after supper he told his story, with
the diary beside him to which he referred now
71
72 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
and then. (I shall omit his irrelevancies, of
which there were a good many.)
" This happened to me," he said, " nearly
thirty years ago. I had been twenty years a
priest, and was working in a town mission in the
south of England. I made the acquaintance of
a Catholic family who had a large country house
about ten miles away. They were not very fer-
vent people, but they had a chapel in the house
where I would say Mass sometimes on Sundays,
when I could get away from my own church on
Saturday night.
" On one of these occasions I met for the first
time an artist, whose name you would all know
if I mentioned it, but it will be convenient to
call him Mr. Farquharson . He made an extremely
unpleasant impression on me, and yet there was
no reason for it that I could see. He was a big
man, palish, with curling brown hair. He was
always very well dressed ; with a suspicion of
scent about him ; he talked extremely wittily and
would say the most surprising things that were
at once brilliant and dangerous ; and yet in his
talk he never transgressed good manners. In fact
he was very cordial always to me ; he seemed
to go out of his way to be courteous and friendly,
THE FATHER RECTOR'S STORY 73
and yet I could not bear the fellow. However,
I tried to conceal that, and with some success, as
you will see.
" I was astonished that he asked me no
questions about our beliefs or practices. Such
people generally do, you know ; and they profess
to admire our worship and its dignity. In the
evening he played and sang magnificently ; very
touching and pathetic songs, as a rule.
" On the following morning he attended Mass,
but I did not think much of that. Guests gener-
ally do, I have found, in Catholic houses. Then
I went off in the afternoon back to my mission.
" I suppose it was six weeks before I met him
again, and then it was at the same place. My
hostess gave me tea alone, for I arrived late ;
and as we sat in the hall she told me that Mr.
Farquharson was there again. Then she added
to my surprise that he had expressed a great liking
for me, and had come down from town partly
with the hope of meeting me. She went on talk-
ing about him for a while ; told me that three of
his pictures had been taken again by the French
Salon, and at last told me that he had been
baptized and educated as a Catholic, but had for
many years ceased to practise his religion. She
had only learnt this recently.
74 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Well, that explained a good deal ; and I was
greatly taken aback. I did not quite know how
to act. But she talked on about him a little,
and I became sorry for the man and determined
that I would make no difference in my behaviour
toward him. From what she said, I gathered
that it might be in my power to win him back.
He had everything against him, she told me.
" Now let me tell you a word about his pictures.
I had seen them here and there, as well as repro-
ductions of them, as all the world had at that
time, and they were very remarkable. They
were on extraordinarily simple and innocent sub-
jects and often religious a child going to
First Communion ; a knight riding on a lonely
road ; a boy warming his hands at the fire ;
a woman praying. There was not a line or a
colour in them that any one could dislike, and
yet yet they were corrupt. I know nothing
about art ; but it needed no art to see that these
were corrupt. I did not understand it then, and
I do not now ; but well, there it is. I cannot
describe their effect on me ; but I know that many
others felt the same, and I believe that kind of
painting is not uncommon in the French School."
The priest paused a moment.
THE FATHER RECTOR'S STORY 75
*' As I went down the long passage to the
smoking-room, I declare that I was not thinking
of this side of the man. I was only wondering
whether I could do anything, but the moment
I came in, and found him standing alone on the
hearthrug, all this leapt back into my mind.
" His personality was exactly like his own
pictures. There was nothing that one could
point to in his face and say that it revealed his
character. It did not. It was a clean-shaven,
clever face, strong and artistic ; his hand, as he
took mine, was firm and slender and strong too.
And yet yet my flesh crept at him. It seemed
to me he was a kind of devil.
" Again I did my utmost to hide all this, as
we sat and talked that evening till the dressing-
gong rang, and again I succeeded, but it was
a sore effort. Once when he put his hand on my
arm I nearly jerked it off, so great was the horror
it gave me.
" I did not sit near him at dinner ; there were
several people dining there that night, but our
host was unwell and went to bed early, and this
man and myself, after he had played and sung
an hour or so in the drawing-room, talked till
late in the smoking-room and all the while the
horror grew ; I have never felt anything like it.
76 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
I am generally fairly placid ; but it was all I could
do to keep quiet. I even wondered once or twice
whether it was not my duty to tell him plainly
what I felt, to to (well really this sounds
absurd) but to curse him as an unclean and
corrupt creature who had lost faith and grace
and everything, and was on the very brink
of eternal fire."
The old man's voice rang with emotion. I had
never seen him so much moved, and was
astonished at his vehemence.
"Well, thank God ! I did not !
" At last it came out that I knew about his
having been a Catholic. I did not tell him where
I had learnt it, but perhaps he suspected. Of
course, though, I might have learnt it in a hundred
ways.
" He seemed very much surprised not at my
knowing, but at my treating him as I did. It
seemed that he had met with unpleasantness more
than once at the hands of priests who knew.
" Well, to cut it short, before I went away
next day he asked me to call upon him sometime
at his house in London, and he asked me in such
a way that I knew he meant it."
The priest stopped and referred to his diary.
Then he went on.
THE FATHER RECTOR'S STORY 77
" It was in the following May, six months later,
that I fulfilled my promise.
" It may have been association, and what I
suspected of the man, but the house almost terri-
fied me by its beauty and its simplicity and its
air of corruption. And yet there was nothing to
account for it. There was not a picture in it,
as far as I could see, that had anything in it to
which even a priest could object. There was a
long gallery leading from the front door, floored,
ceiled, and walled with oak in little panels, with
pictures in each along the two sides, chiefly, I
should suppose now, of that same French School
of which I have spoken. There was an exquisite
crucifix at the end, and yet, in some strange way,
even that seemed to be tainted. I felt I suppose
in the manner that Father Stein described to us
when he mentioned Benares ; and yet there, I
have heard, the pictures and carvings correspond
with the sensation, and here they did not.
" He received me in his studio at the end of
the passage. There was a great painting on an
easel, on which he was working, a painting of
Our Lady going to the well at Nazareth most
exquisite, and yet terrible. I could hardly keep
my eyes off it. It was nearly finished, he told me.
And there was his grand piano against the wall.
78 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Well, we sat and talked ; and before I left
that evening I knew everything. He did not tell
me in confession, and the story became notorious
after his death a few months later ; but yet I can
tell you no more now than that all I had felt about
him was justified by what I heard. Part of what
t^e world did not hear would not have seemed
important to any but a priest ; it was just the
history of his own soul, apart from his deeds,
the history of his wanton contempt of light and
warnings. And I heard more besides too, that I
cannot bear to think of even now."
The priest stopped again ; and I could see his
lips were trembling with emotion. We were all
very quiet ourselves ; the effect on my mind at
least was extraordinary. Presently he went
on :
" Before I left I persuaded him to go to con-
fession. The man had not really lost faith for a
moment, so far as I could gather. I learnt, from
details that I cannot even hint at, that he had
known it all to be true, pitilessly clearly, in
his worst moments. Grace had been prevailing,
especially of late, and he was sick of his life. Of
course he had tried to stifle conscience, but by the
mercy of God he had failed. I cannot imagine why,
except that there is no end to the loving-kindness
THE FATHER RECTOR'S STORY 79
of God, but I have known many souls not half
so evil as his, lose their faith and their whole
spiritual sense beyond all human hope of recovery."
The priest stopped again ; turned over several
pages of his diary, and as he did so I saw him stop
once or twice and read silently to himself, his
lips moving.
" I must miss out a great deal here. He did
not come to confession to me, but to a Carthusian,
after a retreat. I need not go into all the details
of that so far as I knew them, and I will skip
another six months.
" During that time I wrote to him more than
once, and just got a line or two back. Then I
was ordered abroad ; and when we touched at
Brindisi I received a letter from him."
The priest lifted his diary again near his eyes.
" Here is one sentence," he said. " Listen :
* I know I am forgiven ; but the punishment is
driving me mad. What would you say if you
knew all ! I cannot write it. I wonder if we
shall meet again. I wonder what you would
say.'
" There was more that I cannot read ; but it
offers no explanation of this sentence. I wrote of
course at once, and said I would be home in four
months, and asked for an explanation. I did
80 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
not hear again, though I wrote three or four times ;
and after three or four months in Malta I went
back to England.
" My first visit was to Mr. Farquharson, when
I had written to prepare him for my coming."
The old man stopped again, and I could see he
was finding it more and more difficult to speak.
He looked at the diary again once or twice, but I
could see that it was only to give himself time to
recover. Then he lowered it once more, leaned
his elbow on the chair arm, and his head on his
hand, and went on in a slow voice full of effort :
" The first change was in the gallery ; his
pictures were all gone, and in their place hung
others engravings and portraits of no interest
or beauty that I could see. The crucifix was gone,
and in its place stood another very simple and
common a plaster figure on a black cross. It was
all very commonplace such a room as you might
see in any house. The man took me through
as before, but instead of opening the studio door,
as I expected, turned up the stairs on the right,
and I followed. He stopped at a little door at
the end of a short passage, tapped, and threw it
open. He announced my name and I went in."
He paused once more.
" There was a Japanese screen in front of me
THE FATHER RECTOR'S STORY 81
and I went round it, wondering what I should
find. I caught a sight of a simple commonplace
room with a window looking out on my left, and
then I saw an old man sitting in a high chair
over the fire on which boiled a saucepan, warming
his hands, with a rug over his knees. His face
was turned to me, but it was that of a stranger.
"There was a table between us, and I stood
hesitating, on the point of apologizing, and the
old man looked at me smiling.
" * You do not know me,' he said.
" Then I saw it bore an odd sort of resemblance
to Mr. Farquharson ; and I supposed it was his
father. That would account for the mistake
too, I thought in a moment. My letter must
have been delivered to him instead.
" * I came to see Mr. Farquharson,' I said.
' I beg your pardon if ' Then he interrupted
me well, you will guess this was the man I
had come to see. It took a minute or two before
I could realize it. I swear to you that the man
looked, not ten, nor twenty, nor thirty, but fifty
years older.
" I went and took his hand and sat down, but
I could not say a word. Then he told me his
story ; and as he told it I watched him. I looked
at his face ; it had been full and generous in its
82 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
lines, now the skin was drawn tightly over his
cheeks and great square jaw. His hair, so much
of it as escaped under his stuff cap, was snow- white,
and like silk. His hands, stretched over the fire,
were gnarled and veined and tremulous. And
all this had come to him in less than one year.
"Well, this was his story. His health had
failed abruptly within a month of my last sight
of him. He had noticed weakness coming on
soon after his reconciliation, and the failure of
his powers had increased like lightning.
" I will tell you what first flashed into my
mind, that it was merely a sudden unprecedented
breakdown that had first given room for grace
to reassert itself, and had then normally
gone forward. The life he had led well, you
understand.
" Then he told me a few more facts that soon
put that thought out of my head. All his artistic
powers had gone too. He gave me an example.
" ' Look round this room,' he said in his old
man's voice, ' and tell me frankly what you think
of it the pictures the furniture.'
" I did so, and was astonished at their ugliness.
There were a couple of hideous oleographs on the
wall opposite the window perhaps you know
them of the tombs of Our Lord and His Blessed
THE FATHER RECTOR'S STORY 83
Mother, with yellow candlesticks standing upon
them. There were green baize curtains by the
windows ; an Axminster carpet of vivid colours
on the floor ; a mahogany table in the centre
with a breviary upon it and a portfolio open. It
was the kind of a room that you might find in
twenty houses in a row on the outskirts of a
colliery town.
" I supposed of course that he had furnished
his room like this out of a morbid kind of
mortification, and I hinted this to him.
" He smiled again, but he looked puzzled.
" * No, he said, * indeed not. Then you do
think them ugly too ? Well, well. It is that I
do not care. Will you believe me when I tell
you that ? There is no asceticism in the matter.
Those pictures seem to me as good as any others.
I have sold the others.'
" ' But you know they are not good,' I said.
* My friends tell me so, and I remember I
used to think so once too. But that has all gone.
Besides, I like them.'
"He turned in his chair and opened the
portfolio that lay by him.
" ' Look,' he said, and pushed it over to me,
watching my face as I took it.
" It was full of sheets of paper, scrawled with
84 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
such pictures as a stupid child might draw. There
was not the faintest trace of any power in them.
Here is one of them that he gave me." (He drew
out a paper from his diary and held it up.) "I
will show it you presently.
" As I looked at them it suddenly struck me
that all this was an elaborate pose. I suppose I
showed the thought in the way I glanced up at
him. At any rate he knew it. He smiled again,
pitifully.
" ' No,' he said, ' it is not a pose. I have posed
for forty years, but I have forgotten how to do it
now. It does not seem to me worth while, either.'
" ' Are you happy ? ' I asked.
" ' Oh ! I suppose so,' he said.
"I sat there bewildered.
" * And music ? ' I said.
" He made a little gesture with his old hands.
" * Tell Jackson to let you see the piano in the
studio,' he said, ' as you go downstairs. And you
might look at the picture of Our Lady at Nazareth
at the same time. You will see how I tried to
go on with it. My friends tell me it is all wrong,
and asked me to stop. I supposed they knew,
so I stopped.'
" Well, we talked a while and I learnt how all
was with him. He believed with his whole being,
THE FATHER RECTOR'S STORY 85
and that was all. He received the Sacraments
once a week, and he was happy in a subdued
kind of way. There was no ecstasy of happiness ;
there was no torment from the imagination, such
as is usual in these cases of conversion. He had
suffered agonies at first from the loss of his powers,
as he realized that his natural perceptions were
gone, and it was then that he had written to me."
The Rector stopped again a moment, fingering
the paper.
" I saw his doctor, of course, and "
Monsignor broke in. I noticed that he had
been listening intently.
" The piano and the picture ? " he said.
" Ah ! yes. Well, the piano was just a box of
strings ; many of the notes were broken and the
other wires were hopelessly out of tune. They
were broken, the man told me, within a week
or two of his master's change of life he spoke
quite frankly to me Mr. Farquharson had tried
to play, it seemed, and could scarcely play a right
note, and in a passion of anger, it was supposed,
had smashed the notes with his fists. And the
picture well, it was a miserable sight there
was a tawdry sort of crown, ill-drawn and ill-
coloured on her head, and a terrible sort of
cherub painted all across the sky. Someone else,
86 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
it seemed, had tried to paint these out, which
increased the confusion.
" The doctor told me it was softening of the
brain. I asked him honestly to tell me whether
he had ever come across such a case before, and
he confessed he had not.
" It took me a week or two, and another
conversation with Mr. Farquharson before I
understood what it all meant. It was not natural,
the doctor assured me, and it could scarcely be
that Almighty God had arbitrarily inflicted such
a punishment. And then I thought I understood.
as no doubt you have all done before this."
The old priest's voice had an air of finality in
his last sentence, and he handed the scrap of
paper to Father Bianchi, who sat beside him.
" One moment, Father," I said, " I do not
understand at all."
The priest turned to me, and his eyes were full
of tears.
" Why this is my reading of it," he said ; " this
man had been one mass of corruption, body, mind
and soul. Every power of his had been nurtured
on evil for thirty years. Then he made his effort
and the evil was withdrawn and and, well he
fell to pieces. The only thing that was alive in
him was the life of grace. There was nothing
THE FATHER RECTOR'S STORY 87
else to live. He died, too, three months later,
tolerably happy, I think."
As I pondered this the paper was handed to
me, and I looked at it in bewildered silence. It
was a head, grotesque in its feebleness and lack
of art. There was a crown of thorns about it,
and an inscription in a child's handwriting
below :
Deus in virtute Tua salvum me fac I
Then my own eyes were full of tears too.
V
Father Girdlestone's Tale
Father Girdlestone's Tale
44 T HAVE found another raconteur for this
X evening," said Monsignor as he came
in to jdinner on the following day, " but
he cannot be here till late."
The Rector looked up questioningly.
" Yes, I know," said Monsignor unfolding his
napkin. " But it is a long story ; it will take
at least two nights ; but but it is a beauty,
reverend Fathers."
We murmured appreciatively.
" I heard him tell it twenty years ago,"
proceeded the priest, " I was a boy then. . . .
I had a bad night after it, I remember. But the
first part is rather dull."
The appreciative murmur was even louder.
" Well, then ; is that settled ? "
We assented.
The entrance of Father Girdlestone that evening
was somewhat dramatic. We were all talking
briskly together in our wide semicircle, when
91
92 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
Father Brent uttered an exclamation. The talk
died, and I, turning from my corner, saw a very
little old man standing behind the Rector's chair,
motionless and smiling. He was one of the
smallest men, not actually deformed, I have ever
seen, small and very delicate looking. His white
silky hair was thin on his head, but abundant
over his ears ; his face was like thin ivory, trans-
parent and exquisitely carved ; his eyes so over-
hung that I could see nothing of them but two
patches of shadow with a diamond in each. And
there he stood, as if materialized from air, beneath
the folds of his ample Roman cloak.
" I beg your pardon, reverend Fathers," he
said and his voice was as delicate as his com-
plexion " I tapped, but no one seemed to hear
me."
The Rector bustled up from his chair.
" My dear Father " he began ; but Monsignor
interrupted.
" A most appropriate entry, Father Girdlestone,"
he said. " You could not have made a more
effective beginning." He moved his hand.
" Father Girdlestone," he said, introducing us
" And this is the Father Rector."
We were all standing up by now, looking at
this tranquil little old man ; and we bowed and
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 93
murmured deferentially. There was something
very dignified about this priest. Then chairs
were re-sorted I got my own again, moving it
against the wall, watching him as, with almost
foreign manners, he bowed this way and that
before seating himself in the centre. Then we
all sat down ; and after a word or two of talk,
he began.
" I understand from my friend, Monsignor
Maxwell,*' he said, " that you gentlemen would
like to hear my story. I am very willing indeed
to tell it. No possible harm can follow from it,
and, perhaps even good may be the result, if ever
any one who shall hear it is afflicted with the
same visitation. But it is a long story, gentle-
men and I am an old man and shall no doubt
make it longer."
He was reassured, I think, by our faces ; and
without further apology he began his tale.
" My first and only curacy," he said, " was in
the town of Cardiff. I was sent there after my
ordination, four years before the re-establish-
ment of the hierarchy in England ; and the year
after our bishops were given us I was sent to
found a mission inland. Now, gentlemen, I shall
94 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
not tell you where that was ; though no doubt,
you will be able to find out if you desire to do so.
It will be enough now to describe to you the
circumstances and the place.
It was a little colliery village to which I went,
we will call it Abergwyll.
of Irish Catholics there who are, as you know,
the most devout persons on the face of the earth.
They begged very hard for a priest, and, I sus-
pect, gentlemen, there was collusion in the matter.
The Bishop's chaplain had Irish blood in his veins."
He smiled pleasantly.
" At least, there I was sent, with a stipend of
forty pounds and a letter of commendation and
permission to beg. My parishioners set at my
disposal a four-roomed house standing at the
outskirts of the village, removed, I should say,
forty yards from any other house. Behind my
house was open country a kind of moor stretch-
ing over hill and dale to the mountains of Brecon.
The colliery itself stood on the further side of
the village and beneath it, half a mile away. Of
the four rooms I used one as a chapel, on the
ground floor ; that at the back was the kitchen
I slept over the kitchen, and used as my
sitting-room and sacristy that over the chapel.
" I will not detain you with my first experiences.
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 95
They were most edifying. I have never seen
such devotion and fervour. My own devotion
was sensibly increased by all that I heard and
saw. The shepherd, in this case at least, was
taught many lessons by his sheep.
" Now the first ambition of every young priest
who is worthy of the name, is to build a great
church to God's glory. Even I had this ambition.
I had not a great deal of work to do in fact I
may say that there was really nothing to do
except to say mass and office, and to conduct
evening devotions, as I did, every night in the
chapel ; and that little chapel, gentlemen, was
full every night. Much of the day, therefore, I
spent in walking and dreaming. In the morning,
as summer came on, I was accustomed to take
my office-book out with me, and to go over the
moor, perhaps three hundred yards away, to a
little ravine where a stream went down into the
valley. There I would sit in the shade of a rock,
listening to the voice of the water, and saying
my prayers. When I had done I would lie on
my back, looking up at the rock and the sky, and
dreaming well, as every young priest dreams.
" I do not know when it was that I first under-
stood what God intended me to do. I began by
thinking of a great town where my church should
96 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
stand Cardiff, ,or perhaps Newport. I even
arranged its architecture ; it was to be a primitive
Roman basilica, large and plain, with a great
apse with a Christ in glory frescoed there. On
His right were to be the redeemed, on His left
the lost no more than that, with a pair of great
angels behind the throne. That, gentlemen,
without text or comment has always seemed to
me the greatest sermon on earth."
He paused, and looked round at us an instant.
" Well, gentlemen, you know what day-dream-
ing is. I even occupied my time I with forty
pounds a year and thirty collier-parishioners
in drawing designs for my church. And then,
suddenly, on a summer's day a new thought
came to me, and something else with it.
" I was lying on my back on the short grass,
looking up at the rock against the sky, when the
thought came to me that here my basilica should
stand. The rock should be levelled, I thought,
to a platform. The foundations should be
blasted out, and here my church should stand,
alone on the moor, to witness that the demands
of God's glory were dominant and sovereign
. . . Yes, gentlemen, most unpractical and
fantastic. . . .
" I sat up at the thought. It came to me as
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 97
a revelation. In that instant I no more doubted
that it should be accomplished than that God
reigned. I looked below me at the stream.
Yes ; I saw it all ; there the stream should dash
and chatter ; all about me were the solemn
moors ; and here, here on the rock behind me
should stand my basilica, and the Blessed
Sacrament within it.
" I was just about to turn to look at my rock
again, when something happened."
The old man stopped dead.
" Now, gentlemen, I do not know if I can make
this plain to you. What happened to me hap-
pened only interiorly ; but it was as real as a
thunder-clap or a vision. It was this ; it was
an absolute conviction that something was
looking at me from over the top of the rock
behind.
" My first thought was that I had heard a sound.
Then simultaneously the horn blew from the
colliery a mile away, and and " he hesitated,
" 1 was aware that this external sound was on a
different plane. I do not know how to make
that plain to you ; but it was as when one's
imagination is full of some remembered melody
and a real sound breaks upon it. The horn
ceased and there was silence again. Then after
98 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
a moment more my interior experience ceased
too, as abruptly as it had begun.
" All that time, three or four seconds at least, I
had sat still and rigid without turning my head.
I must describe to you as well as I can my sensa-
tions during those seconds. You must forgive
me for being verbose about it.
" Those who have attained to Saint Teresa's
Prayer of Quiet tell us that it is a new world into
which they consciously penetrate a world with
objects, sounds and all the rest but that these
are entirely incommunicable even to the brain of
the percipient. No adequate image or analogy
can be found for those intuitions ; still less can
they be expressed in words. I suppose that this is
an illustration of the truth that the Kingdom of
Heaven is within us.
" Well, gentlemen, I was aware during those
seconds that I was in that state, that I had, as it
were, stepped through the crust of the world of
sense and even of intellectual thought. What I
perceived of a person watching me was not on
this plane at all. It was not one who in any
sense had a human existence, who had ever
had one, or ever would. It did not in the least
resemble therefore an apparition of the dead. But
the perception of this was gradual, as also of the
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 99
nature of the visitation of which I shall speak
in a moment. At first there was only the act
of the entrance into my neighbourhood as of
one entering a room ; then gradually, although
with great speed, I perceived the nature of the
visitation and the character of the visitant.
" And again, that sound, if I may call it so,
was not that of a material object ; it was not a
cry or a word or a movement. Yet it was in
some way the expression of a personality. Shall
we say ' he stopped again, " Well ; do you
know what the sound of a flame is ? There is
not exactly a vibration not a note nor a roar
nor a nor anything. Well, I do not think I
can express it more clearly than by saying that
that is the nearest analogy I can name in the
world of sense. It was as the note of a vivid and
intense personality ; and it continued during
that period and died noiselessly at the end like
a sudden singing in the ears.
" Now I have taken the sense of hearing as
the one which best expresses my experience ; but
it was not really hearing any more than seeing
or tasting or feeling. It seemed to me that if
it was true, as scientists tell us, that we have but
one common sense expressing itself in five ways,
that common sense was indirectly affected in
100 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
this intense and piercing way only beneath its
own plane, if I may say so.
" And one thing more. Although this presence
seemed to bring on me a kind of paralysis, so that
I did not move or even objectively think, yet
beneath, my soul was aware of a repulsion and a
hatred that I am entirely unable to describe. As
God is absolute goodness and Love, so this
presence affected me with precisely the opposite
instinct. . . . There I must leave it that. I
must just ask you to take my word for it that
there was present to me during those few seconds
a kind of distilled Quintessence of all that is
Not-God, under the aspect of a person, and of
a person, as I have said, quite apart from human
existence."
The priest's quiet little voice, speaking now
even lower than he began, yet perfectly articu-
late and unmoved, ceased ; and I leaned back
in my chair drawing a long breath. Again, I
will only speak for myself, and say that he had
seemed to be putting into words for the first
time in my experience something which I had
never undergone and which yet I recognized
as simply true. I doubted it no more than if he
had described a walk he had taken in Rome.
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 101
He looked round at the motionless faces ; then
he lifted one knee on to the other and began to
nurse it.
" Well, gentlemen ; it would be about ten
minutes I suppose before I stood up. I looked
over my shoulder before that, yet knowing I
should see nothing, and indeed there was nothing
to see but the old rock and the sky, and the
silhouette of the grasses against it. I continued
to sit there, because I felt too tired to move. It
was a kind of complete languor that took posses-
sion of me. I had no actual fear now ; I knew
that the thing, whatever it was, had withdrawn
itself it had whisked, if I may say so, out of
my range, as swift as a lizard who knows himself
observed. I knew perfectly well that it would
approach more cautiously if it should ever
approach me again, but that for the present I
need not fear.
" There was another curious detail too. I had
and have now no reflex horror when I think
of it. You see that it had not taken place before
my senses not even, indeed, before my intel-
lect or my conscious powers. It was completely
in the transcendent sphere ; and therefore at
least I can only suppose that this is the reason
therefore when the door was shut, and I was
102 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
returned to my human existence, I had no
associations or even direct memory of the horror.
I knew that it had taken place, but my objective
imagination was not tarnished by it. Later,
it was different ; but I shall come to that pres-
ently. There was the languor, taking its rise
I suppose in the very essence of my being
where I had experienced and resisted the assault,
and this languor communicated itself to my
mind ; just as weariness of mind communicates
itself to the body. Then, after a little rest, I
got up and went home. It was curious also
that after dining the languor had risen even higher :
I felt intolerably tired, and slept dreamlessly in
my chair the whole afternoon.
" That then, gentlemen, was the beginning of
my visitation. It was only the beginning, and
to some degree differed from its continuation.
It seemed to me, later, when I looked back upon
it, that the personality had changed its assault
somewhat, that at first it had rushed upon me
unthinking, impelled by its own passion, and
that afterwards it laid siege with skill and delibera-
tion. . . . But are you sure, gentlemen, that I
am not boring you with all this ? "
Monsignor answered for us. (I noticed that
he cleared his throat slightly before speaking.)
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 103
" No, no, Father. . . . Please go on."
The old priest paused a moment as if to
recollect himself ; then, still nursing his knee,
he began again in his quiet little voice.
" I do not know exactly how long it was before
I began to understand my danger ; but I think
the thought first occurred to me one day during
my meditation. Soon after my ordination I had
read Mme. Guyon's book on prayer, in order to
understand exactly what it was that had been
condemned in Quietism ; and I suppose it had
affected me to some extent. It is indeed a
very subtle book, and extremely beautiful. At
any rate I had long been accustomed to close my
meditation with what she calls the "awful silence "
in the Presence of God. I do not think that,
normally speaking, there is any harm in this ;
on the contrary, for active-minded people in
danger of intellectualism I think it a very useful
exercise. Well, it was one day, I should think
within a fortnight of my experience by the rock,
that I first understood that for me there was
danger. I was in my little chapel, before the
Blessed Sacrament. Everything was quite quiet ;
the men were at work, and the women in their
houses ; it was a hot sunny morning I remem-
ber, breathlessly still : I had finished my formal
104 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
meditation, and was sitting back in my
chair.
" You all know, gentlemen, of course, the way in
which one can approach the silence before God.
Of course the simplest can do it if they will take
pains."
Monsignor Maxwell interrupted, still in that
slightly strained voice in which he had spoken
just now.
" Please describe it," he said.
The priest looked up deprecatingly.
" Well then First I had withdrawn myself
from the world of sense. That takes, as you
know, sometimes several minutes ; it is necessary
to sink down in thought in such a manner that
sounds no longer distract the attention even
though they may be heard, and even considered
and reflected upon. Then the second step is to
leave behind all intellectual considerations and
images, and that too sometimes is troublesome,
especially if the mind is naturally active. Well,
this day I found an extraordinary ease in both
the acts."
Father Brent leaned forward.
" May I interrupt, Father ? But I am not
sure that I understand,"
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 105
The old man pursed his lips. Then he glanced
up at the rest of us almost apologetically.
" Well, it is this, my dear Father. . . . How
can I put it ? It is the introversion of the soul.
Instead of considering this object or that, either
by looking upon it or reflecting upon it, the soul
turns inwards. There are the two distinct planes
on which many men, especially those who pay
little or no attention to the soul, live continually.
Either they continually seek distractions ; they
cannot be devout except in company or before
an image ; or else as indeed many do who have
even the gift of recollection they dwell entirely
upon considerations and mental images. Now
the true introversion is beneath all this. The
soul sinks, turning inwards upon itself. . . there
are no actual considerations at all ; those become
in their turn as much distractions to the energy
of the soul as external objects to the energy of the
mind. ... Is that clearer, my dear Father ? "
It was all said with a kind of patient and apolo-
getic simplicity. Father Brent nodded pensively
two or three times and dropped his chin again
upon his hand. The old priest went on.
" Well, gentlemen, as I said just now ; on this
morning I came into the silence without an effort.
8 <*ooo)
106 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
First the sensible world dropped away. I heard
a woman open and shut her door fifty yards
away down the street ; but it was no more than
a sound. Then almost immediately the world
of images and considerations went past me
and vanished ; and I found myself in perfect
stillness.
" For an instant it seemed to me that all was
well. There was that strange tranquillity all
about me. ... I cannot put it into words
except by saying, as all do who practise that
method, that it is a living tranquillity full of a
very vital energy. This is not of course that to
which contemplatives penetrate ; St. John of
the Cross makes that very plain ; it is no more
than that in which we ought always to live. It
is that Kingdom of God within, of which our
Blessed Lord tells us ; but it is not the Palace
itself. . . . However, as I have said, when one
has but learnt the way there and the difficulty
of doing so lies only in its extreme and singular
simplicity when one has learnt the way there
it is full of pleasure and consolation.
"I remained there, as my manner was, drawing
a long breath or two as one is obliged to do I
do not know why. And at first all seemed well.
There was that peace about me which may be
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 107
described under the image of any one of the five
senses. I prefer to speak of it now as under the
image of light a very radiant mellow light full
of warmth and sweetness. There was too, just
at first, that sense of profound abasement and
adoration which is so familiar. ... As I said,
gentlemen, I do not of course for an instant
pretend to the gift of pure contemplation ;
that is something far beyond.
" Then, all in an instant that sense of
adoration vanished.
" Now it was not that I had risen back again
to meditation ; there were no images before my
attention, no reflections of any formulated kind.
It was still the pure perception, and yet all sense
of adoration and of God's Majesty was gone.
The light and the peace were there still, but but
not God. . . .
" Then I perceived, if I may say so, that some-
thing was on the point of disclosure. It was as
if something was about to manifest itself. I per-
ceived that the light was not as it had been. It
was like that strange vivid sunlight that we see
sometimes when a heavy cloud is overhead. That
is the only way in which I can express it. It is
for that reason that I called it light, rather than
sound or touch. For an instant, still, I hesitated.
108 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
The thought of what had happened to me by
the rock never came to my mind ; and with incon-
ceivable swiftness the process passed on. To
use an auditory metaphor for a moment it was
like the change of an orchestra. The minor note
steals in ; a blight passes over the character of
the sound ; and, simultaneously the volume
increases, the chords expand, tearing the heart
with them ; and the listener perceives that a
moment later the climax will break in thunder."
He had raised his voice a little by now ; his
eyes glanced this way and that, though still
without a trace of self-consciousness. Then again
his voice dropped.
" Well, gentlemen, before that final moment
came I had remembered. The vision of the rock
and the chatter of the stream was before me,
sharp as a landscape under lightning. ... I
do not know what I did ; but I was aware of
making a kind of terrified effort. My soul sprang
up, as a diver who chokes under water ; and in
an instant the whole thing was gone. Then I
became aware that my eyes were open, and that
I was standing up. I was still terrified by the
suddenness of the experience ; and stood there,
saying something aloud to our Lord in the
Tabernacle. Then I heard the door open behind me.
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 109
"Did you cry out, Father," said Bridget,
" Why, Mother of Mercy ! "
" I felt myself beginning to sway on my feet.
. . . Well, gentlemen, I need not trouble you with
all that. The truth was that Bridget, who was
washing up my breakfast things in the kitchen,
heard me cry out. She told me afterwards that
when she saw my face she thought that I was
dying. ... I sat down a little then ; and she
fetched me something ; and presently I was able
to walk out.
" Well, gentlemen, that is enough for this
evening."
He stopped abruptly.
We got up and went to night-prayers.
II
"WELL, so far," began Father Girdlestone on
the following evening, " so far you see two things
had happened to me. First there seems to have
been a kind of unpremeditated assault that
affected me body, mind and soul. That was
the attack by the rock. Then he began to lay
siege more deliberately ; and attacked me in my
meditation in what I may call the innermost
chamber that ante-room to the transcendent
110 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
world. Now I have to tell you of his next
assault."
There was a rustle of expectation as we settled
ourselves to listen. I had found on questioning
the others in the morning that they were in the
same attitude as myself, impressed, but not
convinced indeed, strangely impressed by the
extreme subtlety of the experience related to us.
Yet there had been no proof, no tangible evidence,
such as we are accustomed to demand, that the
incidents had been anything more than subjective.
At the same time there had been something
remarkable in the priest's assurance as well as in
the precise particularity of his narrative. It
seemed now, however, from what he said, that
perhaps we were to have more materialistic
elements presented to us.
" The result, of course," continued Father
Girdlestone, " of the attack upon my soul was
that I became terrified at the thought of any
further act of introversion. It seemed to me on
reflection that I had probably overstrained my
faculties a little, and that I had better be more
distinctly meditative in devotion.
" I fetched down therefore from my shelves a
copy of the Spiritual Exercises, and set to work,
I began with a carefully objective act of the
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 111
Presence of God, dwelling chiefly upon the Blessed
Sacrament, and then pursued carefully the lines
laid down. Two or three times every day, I
should say, I was tempted to fall back upon the
Prayer of Quiet ; and each time I resisted it.
It was a kind of frightened fascination that I
felt for it. It was as if it had been a cupboard
where something terrible lurked in silence and
darkness, ready to tear me if I opened the door.
Of course I should have opened it boldly : any
priest of experience would have told me so at
once : but I did not fully understand what was
wrong. The result was as you shall hear.
" All went well for several days. I meditated
with care, making the prescribed considerations
the preludes, the pictures and all the rest observ-
ing to go straight from the intellectual act to the
voluntary. I became soothed and content again.
Then, without any warning the new assault was
made. It came about in this fashion.
" I was meditating upon the Particular Judg-
ment ; and had formed the picture, as vividly as
possible, of my soul before the Judge. I saw the
wounds and the stains on one side ; the ineffably
piercing grace and holiness on the other. I saw
the reproach in the Judge's face. I seized my
soul by the neck, as it were, and crushed it down
112 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
in humility and penitence. And then suddenly it
seemed to me that my hold relaxed, and all
faded. Now this assault came to me in intellec-
tual form, yet I cannot remember the argu-
ments. It began, if I may say so, as a blot upon
the subject of my meditation, effacing the image
of my Judge and of myself ; and it spread with
inconceivable swiftness over the whole of my
faith. . . ."
The priest paused, smiling steadily at the fire.
" How shall I put it ? " he said. " Well, in a
word it was intellectual doubt of the whole thing.
A kind of cloud of infidelity seemed to envelop
me. I beat against it ; but it poured on, thick
and black. There seemed to me no Person
behind it ; it was the very negative of Personality
that surrounded me. ' After all,' it seemed to say
to me, yet without words or intellect, you under-
stand ' after all this is a pretty picture ; but
where is the proof ? What shadow of a proof is
there that the whole thing is not a dream ? If
there were objective proof, how could any man
doubt ? If there is not objective proof, what
reason have you to trust in religion at all far
more to sacrifice your life to it ? ... Death,
too what is that but the resolving of the ele-
ments that issue in what you call the soul ? And
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 113
when the elements resolve the soul disperses '
. . . and so on, and so on. You know it,
gentlemen. ... It suggested hostile things
against our Lord when I turned to the Taber-
nacle. And then, on a sudden, as it had done
in the deeper plane, it spread upwards to an
intolerable climax. I began to see myself as a
dying spark in a burning out world ; and there
was no escape for there was nothing but empty
space about me : no God, no heaven ; not even a
devil to hint at life in some form at least after
death. I looked during those seconds into the
gulf of annihilation. ... I cried out in my
heart that I would sooner live in hell than die
there . . . and the vision, if I may call it
so, of ultimate eternal blackness cleared every
instant before my intellect until it was imminent
upon me as a demonstrable certainty ; and then,
once more, before that loomed out as actually
intellectually certain, I struggled, and stood up,
saying something aloud, the name of God, I think,
while the sweat poured down my face.
" It passed then at least in its acuteness.
There was the little domed Tabernacle before me
with its white curtains, and the altar-cards and
the gilt candlesticks ; and a woman went past the
window in clogs ; and I heard a bird twitter
114 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
beneath the eaves, and it was all, for a while,
natural and peaceful again."
The priest stopped.
" Now, gentlemen," he said very slowly.
" Intellectual difficulties have occurred to most
people, I imagine. How should it not be so ? If
religion were small enough for our intellects it
could not be great enough for our soul's require-
ments. But this was not just that fleeting tran-
sient obscurity that we call intellectual difficulty.
It was to ordinary darkness, what substance is to
imagination what a visible concrete scene is to
a fancy what life is to dreaming. I know I
cannot express what I mean ; but I want you to
take it on -my word that this visitation in the
realm of the intellect was a solid blackness, com-
pared with which all other difficulties that I have
ever heard of or experienced are as a mere lower-
ing of intellectual lights. It was paralleled only
by my experience in introversion. That, too, had
not been an emotional withdrawal, or a spiritual
dryness, as we commonly use those words. It
had been a solid unutterably heavy burden
real beyond description. . . . And further, I want
you to consider my dilemma. I had been routed
in my soul and dared not take refuge there ; I
had been overwhelmed too, in my intellect ;
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 115
and even when the first misery had passed it
seemed to me that the arguments against the
Faith were stronger than those for it. I did not
dare to put one against the other. A heavy
deposit had been left upon my understanding.
I did not dare to sit down and argue ; I did not
dare to run for refuge to the Silence of God. I
was driven out into the sole thing that was left
the world of sense."
Again he stopped, still with that tranquil
smile. I hardly understood him ; though I
think I saw very dimly what he had called his
dilemma. Yet I did not understand what he
meant by the " world of sense."
After a little pause he went on
" To the world of sense," he repeated. " It
seemed to me now that this was all that was left.
I determined then and there to drop my medita-
tion, and to confine myself to Mass, office, and
rosary. I would say the words with my lips,
quickly and steadily, keeping my mind fixed
upon them rather than upon their meaning ;
and I would trust that presently the clouds
would pass.
" Well, gentlemen, for about two months I
continued this. The misery I suffered is simply
indescribable. You can imagine all the suggestions
116 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
I made to myself when I was off my guard.
I told myself that I was a coward and a sham
that I had lost my faith and that I continued to
act as a priest ! What was especially hard to
bear was the devotion of my parishioners. As I
knelt in front saying the rosary and they responded,
I could hear the thrill of conviction in every word
that they uttered. Oh ! those Irish ! The things
they said to me sometimes were like swords
for pain . . . the Masses they asked me to
say. . . !
" I went to a priest at a distance once or twice
and told him the bare outline not as I have told it
to you. He laughed at me, kindly of course. He
told me that it was the effect of loneliness, while
I knew that at the best it was the work of one who
bore me continual company now and who was
stronger than I. He told me that all young
priests had to win the victory in some form or
other ; that every priest thought his own case
the most desperate. . . . Yet I knew from
every word that he said that he did not under-
stand ; and that I could never make him under-
stand. Yet, somehow, I set my teeth : I told
God that I was willing to bear this dereliction
for as long as He willed so paradoxical and
mysterious is the gift of Faith if He would
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 117
but save my soul ; and at last, in a kind of
defiance, I began to look once more at my designs
for the church I was to build.
" You see, gentlemen, what I meant by taking
refuge in the world of sense. I deliberately
contemplated never daring to face God again
interiorly, or even my own soul. I would do my
duty as a priest ; I would say my Mass and office ;
I would preach strictly what the Church enjoined ;
I would live and die like that, with my teeth set.
Better God beaten and denied, than all the world
beside in prosperity ! "
For the first time in the whole of his narrative
Father Girdlestone's voice trembled a little. He
passed his thin old hand over his mouth once or
twice, shifted his position and began again.
" It was on the first of October that I took
down my plans again. I had not looked at them
for two months : I had not the heart to do so.
" Now let me describe to you exactly the
room in which I sat and the other necessary
circumstances.
" In the centre of my room stood my table with
two windows on my left, the fire in front and the
door behind me to the right. The windows were
hung with serge curtains. I had no carpet ; but
118 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
a little mat only beneath my table and another
before the fire.
" It was in the beginning of October to be
accurate, the third of the month that this thing
happened that I am about to tell you.
" I awoke early that morning, said my Mass as
usual, with attention and care, but no sensible
devotion, and after my thanksgiving sat down to
breakfast. It was then that I first had any
uneasiness.
" I was breakfasting at my table, and beyond
me, in front and to the right stood a large basket
chair. I was reading some book or other, and can
honestly say that nothing was further from
my mind than my experiences in the summer.
Remember, during two months nothing had hap-
pened nothing at least, beyond that intolerable
intellectual darkness. Then the basket-chair
suddenly clicked, in the way in which they
do half-an-hour after one has sat in them. It
distracted my attention for an instant it was
just enough for that ; no more. I went on with
my book.
" Then it clicked again, three or four times ;
and I looked up, rather annoyed. . . . Well,
to be brief, this went on and on. After break-
fast when Bridget came to fetch the tray I asked
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 119
whether she had touched the chair that morning.
She told me No. (All this time, remember, no
thought of anything odd had entered my head.)
I supposed it was the damp ; and said so.
" While she was still in the room I went out to
fetch my breviary from the chapel ; and as I set
foot on the stairs, leaving the door open behind
me, I heard her, as I thought, come out after me
with the tray, and follow me, three or four steps
behind, all down the staircase. I had no more
doubt of that than of the fact that I myself was
going downstairs. At the turn of the stairs I
did not even look behind. By the sounds not
clear footfalls you understand but a kind of
shuffling and breathing, and still more by the con-
sciousness that there she was, I judged she was
in a hurry, as she often was. At the foot of the
stairs I turned to say something, and, as I began
to turn I will swear that I saw a figure out of the
corner of my eye ; but when I looked, it was
simply not there. There was nothing there. . . .
Do you understand, gentlemen ? Nothing at all.
" I called up to her ; and heard her come across
the floor. Then she looked over the banister.
* Did you come out of the room just now ? '
I said.
" * No, your Reverence.* "
120 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Well ; I made my theory of course. It was
to the effect that she had moved in the room as
I came out, that I therefore thought she was
following me, and that the rest was simply
self-suggestion.
" I got my breviary and came out. As I came
into the little lobby, again there occurred to me the
impression that some one was there, waiting in the
corner. I looked round me ; there was nothing ;
and I went upstairs.
" Gentlemen ; do you know that nervous
condition when one feels there is some one in the
room ? It is generally dissipated in ten minutes'
conversation. Well ; I was in that condition all
the morning. But there was more than that.
" It was not only that sense of some one there ;
there were sounds now and then, very faint, but
absolutely distinct, coming from all quarters
sounds so minute and unimportant in themselves
that I might have heard them a hundred times
without giving them another thought, if they
had not been accompanied by that sense of a
presence with me. They were of all kinds.
Once or twice a piece of woodwork somewhere in
the room clicked, as my basket-chair had done
a sharp minute rap such as one hears in damp
weather. Once the door became unlatched and
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 121
slid very softly with the sound of a hush over a
piece of matting that lay there. I got up and shut
the door again, looking, I must confess, for an
instant on to the landing ; and as I came back to
my chair, that clicked twice.
" Gentlemen, I know this sounds absurd.
You will be saying, as I said, that I was simply in
a nervous condition. Very well, perhaps I was :
but please wait. Once, as I sat in my chair
drawn sideways near the fireplace a very slight
movement caught my eye. I turned sharply ;
it was no more than the fringe of the mat under
the table lifting in the draught. As I looked it
ceased.
" Well ; my nerves got worse and worse. I
stared every now and then round the room.
There was nothing to be seen but the boards, the
mats, the familiar furniture, the black and white
crucifix over the mantelshelf, my few books, and
the vestment-chest near the door. There were
the curtains, too, hanging at the windows. That
was all. It was a cloudy October day ; and
rained a little about half-past twelve. I remember
starting suddenly as a gust came and dashed the
drops against the glass.
" At about a quarter to one, Bridget came in to
lay dinner. ... I am ashamed to say it, but I
122 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
was extraordinarily relieved when I heard her open
the downstairs door. (She came in, you remem-
ber, three or four times a day to see after me :
otherwise I was alone in the house.)
" When she came into the room I looked up at
her. . . . She smiled at me, and then it seemed
to me that her face took on it rather an odd
expression. She stopped smiling, and before she
set down the tablecloth and knives she looked
round the room rather curiously, I thought.
" ' Well, Bridget,' I said, ' what is it ? '
" There was just a moment before she answered.
" * It is nothing, your Reverence,' she said.
" Then she laid dinner. I dined, reading all the
while ; and she brought in the dishes one by one.
I am afraid I hurried rather over dinner. I made
up my mind to go out for a long walk ; there was
something else in my mind too well I may as
well tell you it seemed to me that I should
rather like to be out of the house before she was.
Yes, it was cowardly ; but remember that all this
while I was telling myself that I had an attack
of the nerves, and that I had better not be alone
except in the fresh air.
" Well, nothing at all happened that afternoon.
It seemed to me as I went over the moors that all
sense of haunting had ceased ; I noticed first
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 123
consciously that it had gone soon after leaving
the outskirts of the village ; I was entirely happy
and serene.
" As I came back into sight of the village at
dusk, and saw the lights shining over the hill, the
uneasiness came on me again. It struck me
vividly for the first time that a night spent alone
in that house would be slightly uncomfortable.
By this time, of course, too, the possibility of a
connexion between my present state and my other
experiences had occurred to my mind ; but I had
striven to resist this idea as merely one more
nervous suggestion.
" My uneasiness grew greater still as I came up
the street. I am ashamed to say that I stopped to
talk three or four times to my parishioners simply
out of that unaccountably strong terror of my own
house. I noticed too, across the street that a
face peeped from Bridget's window and drew back
on seeing me. A moment later the door opened
and she came out.
" I did not turn or wait for her ; but as I
reached my door I was conscious of a very dis-
tinct relief that she was behind me ; and as I
went in she came immediately after me.
4 1 am very sorry, Father,' she said, " I haven't
your tea ready yet."
124 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" I told her to bring it as soon as she could,
and went slowly upstairs with the horror deepening
at every step. I knew perfectly well now why she
had waited : it was that she did not like to enter
the empty house alone. . . . Yet I did not feel
that I could ask her what it was that she feared.
That would be a kind of surrender on my part
an allowing to myself that there was something
to fear ; and you must remember that I still was
trying to tell myself that it was all nerves.'*
The Rector leaned forward.
" I am very sorry, Father Girdlestone," he said
softly ; " but it is past time for night-prayers."
He paused. " But may we make an exception
to-night, and hear the rest afterwards ? "
The old man stood up, and motioned with a
little smile towards the chapel gallery.
Ill
" As I went forward into the room," began the
old man again, as soon as we had taken our seats
in silence, " I knew beyond doubt that I was
accompanied. I heard Bridget moving about
downstairs ; but it was as sound heard through
the roar of a train. There went with me
something resembling a loud noise interior, you
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 125
understand, yet on the brink of manifestation
in the world of sense or you may call it a black-
ness, or a vast weight as heavy as heaven and
earth and it was all centred round a person-
ality. It was of such a nature that I should have
been surprised at nothing. It appeared to me
that all that I looked upon the serge curtains,
my table, my chair, the glow of the fire on the
hearth and the glimmer on the bare boards
all these were but as melting shreds and rags
hanging upon some monstrous reality. They
were there they were just in existence ; but
they were as accidents without substance.
" I do not know if there were definite sounds
or not -or even definite appearances beyond
the normal material sounds and sights. There
may have been ; but I do not think so.
" I went across the room, walking, it seemed
to me, on nothingness. My body was still in
sensible relations with matter, but it seemed to
me that I was not. I found my chair and sat
down in it to wait. I was nerveless now, sunk
in a kind of despair that I cannot hope to make
plain to you. I imagine that a lost soul on the
edge of death must be in that state.
" I looked almost vacantly round the room once
or twice ; but there was nothing. I understood
126 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
without consideration what was happening, and
the general course of events. It was all one, I
perceived now. That which had started up at
the rock which had invaded first the innermost
chamber of my soul, and then the intellectual
plane, and had established itself there, had now
taken its final step forward, and was claiming
the world of sense as well. I felt entirely power
less. You will wonder why I did not go down-
stairs to the Blessed Sacrament I do not know ;
but it was impossible. Here was the battlefield,
I knew very well.
" I perceived something else too. It was the
reason of the assaults. I did not fully understand
it ; but I knew that the object was to drive me
from the place to make the village and neigh-
bourhood detestable to me. I knew that I
could escape by going away ; yet it was not
exactly a temptation I had no interior desire to
escape. It was merely a question as to which
force would prevail in my soul that which
impelled me away, and grace which held me
there. I was as a passive dummy between them.
" I do not know how long it was before Bridget
pushed open the door. I saw her with the tray
come across the room and set it down upon my
table. Then I saw her looking at me.
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 127
" ' Bridget,' I said, ' I shall want no supper
to-night. And tell the people that I am unwell
and that there will be no night-prayers. There
will be Mass, I hope, as usual, in the morning.'
" I said these words, I believe ; but the voice was
not as my own, it was as if another spoke. I
saw her looking at me across the dusk with an
extraordinary terror in her face.
" ' Come away, Father,' she whispered.
" I shook my head.
" ' Come away,' she whispered again ; ' this is
not a good house to be in.'
" I said nothing.
" ' Shall I fetchFatherDonovantoyou,Father,'
she whispered, ' or the doctor ? '
' Fetch no one,' I said to her. ' Tell no one
Ask for prayers, if you will. Go and leave me to
myself, Bridget.'
" I think I understood even then what the
struggle was she was going through. I do not
know if she perceived all that I perceived ; but
even from her face, without her words, I knew
that she was conscious of something. Yet she
did not like to leave me alone. She stood per-
fectly still, looking first at me, then slowly round
the room ; then back at me again. And as she
looked the dusk fell veil on veil.
128 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
"Then something happened: I do not know
what ; I never questioned her afterwards ; but
she was gone ; I heard her stumbling and
moaning down the stairs. An instant later the
street-door opened and banged, and I was left
alone.
" I cannot tell you what I felt. I knew only
that the crisis was come, and that the result was
out of my hands. I closed my eyes, I think,
and lay right back in my chair. It was as if I was
submitting myself to an operation ; I wondered
vaguely as to what shape it would take.
" All about the room I felt the force gathering.
There was no oscillation, no vibration, but a steady
continuous pressure concentrating itself within the
four walls. With this the sense of the central
personality grew every moment more and more
intense and vivid. It seemed to me as if I were
some tiny conscious speck of matter in the midst
of a life whose vastness and malignance was
beyond conception. At times it was this ; at
other times it was as if I looked within and saw
a space full of some indescribable blackness a
space of such a nature that I could not tell whether
it was as tiny as a pinhole or as vast as infinity.
It was spaceless space, sheer emptiness, but with
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 129
an emptiness that was a horror; and it was
within me.
" Yet it was not simple spirit it was not the
correlative of matter. It was rather spirit in the
very throes of manifestation in matter.
" Sometimes then I attended to this ; some-
times I lay with every sense at full stretch at a
tenseness that seemed impossible, directed out-
wards. I cannot tell even now whether the
room was poised in deathly silence, or in an
indescribable clamour and roar of tongues. It
was one or the other ; or it was both at once.
" Or to take the sense of sight. Although my
eyes were closed every detail of the room was
before me. Sometimes I saw it as rigid as a
man at grips with death, in a kind of pallor
the table, the dying fire, the-ttacurtained windows
all in the pallor the very names of the books
visible all, as it were, striving to hold themselves
in material being under the stress of some enor-
mous destructive force with which they were
charged as rigid and as silent and as significant
as an electric wire and as full of power. Or at
times all seemed to me to have gone, simply to
have dissolved into nothingness, as a breath
fades on a window to retain but a phantom of
themselves.
130 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Well, well words are very useless gentlemen ;
they are poor things "
The old priest paused a moment, leaning for-
ward in his chair with his thin veined hands
together. For myself I cannot say what I felt.
I seemed to be in somewhat of the state as that
which he was describing : all my senses too were
stretched to the full by the intensity of my
attention. Yet the narrator seemed little affected ;
he leaned and looked peacefully into the fire, and
I caught the glint of light on his deep eyes.
Then he leaned back, and went on.
" Now you must picture to yourselves, gentle-
men, that this state grew steadily in its energy.
I did not know before and I can scarcely believe
it now that human nature could bear so much.
Yet I seemed to myself to be observing my
strained faculties from a plane apart from them.
It was as the owner of a besieged castle might
stand on a keep and watch the figures of his men
staring out over the battlements at a sight he
could not see. There were my eyes looking, my
ears listening, even the touch of my fingers on
the chair arms questioning what it was that they
held : and there was I my very self far within
waiting for communications.
" I suppose that I knew there was no escape.
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 131
I could not descend into the sphere of reason,
for another power held the keys ; I could not
sink again to the inner presence of God, for that
chamber too was occupied ; there was this last
stand to be made the world of sense. If that
was lost, all was lost : and I could not lift a finger
to help. And, as I said, the strain grew greater
each instant, as the opening swell of an organ
waxes with a long steady crescendo to its final
roar.
" I do not know at exactly what point I under-
stood the assault : but it became known to me
presently that what was intended was to merge the
world of sense, so far as I was concerned, into this
mighty essence of evil to burst through, or
rather to transcend the material. Then, I knew,
I should be wholly lost. I remember too that I
perceived soon after this that this was what the
world calls madness. And I understood at
this moment, as never before, how that process
consummates itself. It begins, as mine did, with
the carrying of the inner life by storm ; that may
come about by deliberate acquiescence in sin
I should suppose that it always does in some
degree. Then the intellect is attacked it may
only be in one point a ' delusion ' it is called ;
and with many persons regarded only as eccentric
132 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
the process goes no further. But when the
triumph is complete, the world of sense too is
lost and the man raves. I knew at that time
for absolute fact that this is the process. The
' delusions ' of the mad are not non-existent
they are glimpses, horrible or foul or fantastic,
of that strange world that we take so quietly for
granted, that at this moment and at every moment
is perpetually about us foaming out its waters
in lust or violence or mad irresponsible blasphemy
against the Most High.
" Well, I saw that this was what threatened ;
yet I could not move a finger. No thought of
flight entered my mind. All had gone too far by
now.
" Then, gentlemen, the climax came."
Again the old priest was silent.
I heard Monsignor's pipe drop with a clatter ;
and my nerves thrilled like a struck harp. He
made no movement to pick it up. He stared only
at the old man.
Then the quiet voice went on.
" This was the climax, gentlemen. The
intensity swelled and swelled each moment I
thought must be the last the utmost effort of
hell. Then with a crash the full close sounded ;
and through the rending tear through the veil
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 133
of matter that whirled away and was gone I
caught one swift glimpse of all that lay beneath.
It was not through one sense that I perceived it ;
it was through perception pure and simple.
Well how can I say it ? It was this. I
perceived two vast forces pressed one against
the other, as silent and as rigid as as the glass of
a diver's helmet against the huge incumbent
glimmering water. It is a wretched simile
let us say that the appearance was as the meeting
of fire and water without mist or tumult. The
forces were absolutely opposed absolutely alien
yet absolutely one in the plane of being. They
could meet as the created and uncreated could
not as flesh and spirit cannot. They met, level,
coincident each rigid to breaking point each
full of an energy to which there is no parallel in
this world.
" It seemed to me that all had waited for this.
The enemy had been permitted to stand in the
gate ; and at the instant of his triumph the fire
of God was upon him, locked in the embrace
of utter repulsion.
" And it was given to me to watch that, gentle-
men. On the edge of what the world labels as
madness, at the very instant that I hung balanced
on that line, I saw that endless war of spirit and
134 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
spirit which has been raging since Michael drove
Satan from heaven that ceaseless untiring
conflict in which all that is not for God is
against Him, seeking to dethrone and annihilate
Him who gave it being. Ah ! words words
but I saw it."
There was a dead silence in the room. The
priest drew one breath.
" Then I saw no more. I was in my chair as
before, holding the arms ; and the room round
me stole back into being through the pallor of a
phantom, to the dusk of earthly twilight ; and I
perceived that my eyes were closed and not
open.
" There then I stayed, knowing that the war
still raged beneath, yet fainter every moment as
the tide crawled back, contesting inch by inch,
rolled back by that remorseless power. Twice or
three times I heard the murmur of sound in the
room ; the serge curtains swayed I could hear
them I heard the door vibrating softly : then
once more the quiet silence was there, and I
heard the ashes slip by their weight from grate
to fender. Matter at last was itself again ; then
once more, as into my intellect the light stole
back, and I knew that God reigned and that His
Son was incarnate, crucified and risen by many
FATHER GIRDLESTONE'S TALE 135
irrefragable proofs, round the house I could hear
the murmuring of voices, and see through closed
eye-lids of utter repose the glimmer of lanterns on
the ceiling.
" Within myself too I watched the rout of evil ;
I drew breath after breath, deep and life-giving,
as far down within the secret chambers of my
soul the foul filth ebbed and sank and that spring
rising into life everlasting, of which our Saviour
spoke, welled up in its stead, filling every cranny
and corner of my soul with that strange sweetness,
so sweet and so dear that we forget it as the
very air we breathe. The murmur of conflict
was infinitely far away ; and it seemed to me
that once more I went down, down, in that in-
troversion of which I spoke just now, seeing all
clean and sweet about me, down into the presence
of the Lord who rules Heaven and earth at His
will. Then a door closed, deep, deep below ; and
I knew that the enemy was gone.
" Well, gentlemen," said the priest after a pause,
leaning back, " that is really the story. But there
are a few details to add.
" When the men that Bridget had fetched came
upstairs, they found me asleep ; but, they told
me afterwards, there were streaks of foam at the
136 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
corners of my mouth. Yet she was not gone
three minutes.
" I never spoke a word to them of what hap-
pened they knew quite enough for laymen.
We had night-prayers as usual that evening. I
said the Visita quaesumus Domine at the end.
" I slept like a child ; and I said a mass of
thanksgiving next day/'
Father Brent broke the silence that followed.
His voice seemed strange.
" And the church, Father ? "
The old priest smiled at him full.
' You have guessed it," he said. " Yes : the
church was built thirty years later. It is a
basilica, as I said ; it presents our Lord in glory
in an apse. It stands curiously enough on the
rock ; but it is in the middle of a huge colliery
town and well I may as well say it there is a
grated tribune above the high altar at one side,
through which a convent of Poor Clares can assist
at the Holy Sacrifice. Poor Clares ! I ceased
to wonder at the assault as soon as the convent
was built."
He stood up smiling.
VI
Father Bianchi's Story
l-fioOo)
VI
Father Bianchi's Story
T7ATHER BIANCHI, as the days went on,
seemed a little less dogmatic on the
theory that miracles (except of course
those of the saints) did not happen. He was
warned by Monsignor Maxwell that his turn was
approaching to contribute a story ; and suddenly
at supper he announced that he would prefer to
get it over at once that evening.
" But I have nothing to tell," he cried, expostu-
lating with hands and shoulders, " nothing to tell
but the nonsense of an old peasant woman."
When we had taken our places upstairs, and the
Italian had again apologized and remonstrated
with raised eyebrows, he began at last ; and I
noticed that he spoke with a seriousness that I
should not have expected.
" When I was first a priest," he said, " I was
in the south of Italy, and said my first Mass in
a church in the hills. The village was called
Arripezza."
139
140 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Is that true ? " asked Monsignor suddenly,
smiling.
The Italian grinned brilliantly. "Well, no,"
he said, " but it is near enough, and I swear to
you that the rest is true. It was a village in the
hills, ten miles from Naples. They have many
strange beliefs there ; it is like Father Brent's
Cornwall. All along the coast, as you know,
they set lights in the windows on one night of the
year ; because they relate that Our Lady once
came walking on the water with her Divine
Child, and found none to give her shelter. Well,
this village that we will call Arripezza was not
on the coast. It was inland, but it had its own
superstitions to compensate it superstitions
cursed by the Church.
" I knew little of all this when I went there. I
had been in the seminary until then.
" The parrocho was an old man, but old ! He
could say Mass sometimes on Sundays and feasts,
but that was all, and I went to help him. There
were many at my first Mass, as the custom is, and
they all came up to kiss my hands when it was
done.
" When I came back from the sacristy again
there was an old woman waiting for me, who
told me that her name was Giovannina. I had
FATHER BIANCHI'S STORY 141
seen her before, as she kissed my hands. She
was as old as the parrocho himself I cannot tell
how old yellow and wrinkled as a monkey.
" She put five lire into my hands.
" * Five Masses, Father,* she said, * for a soul
in purgatory.'
" ' And the name ? '
" * That does not matter,' she said, * and will
you say them, my Father, at the altar of
S. Espedito ? '
" I took the money and went off, and as I went
down the church I saw her looking after me, as
if she wished to speak, but she made no sign and
I went home ; and I had a dozen other Masses
to say, some for my friends, and a couple that the
parrocho gave me, and those, therefore, I began
to say first. When I had said the fifth of the
twelve, Giovannina waited for me again at the
door of the sacristy. I could see that she was
troubled.
" ' Have you not said them, my Father ? *
she asked. * He is here still.*
" I did not notice what she said, except the
question, and I said No, I had had others to say
first. She blinked at me with her old eyes a
moment, and I was going on, but she stopped me
again.
142 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" ' Ah ! Say them at once, Father,' she said ;
' he is waiting.'
" Then I remembered what she had said before,
and I was angry.
" * Waiting ! ' I said ; * and so are thousands
of poor souls.'
" * Ah, but he is so patient,' she said ; ' he has
waited so long.'
" I said something sharp, I forget what, but
the parrocho had told me not to hang about and
talk nonsense to women, and I was going on, but
she took me by the arm.
" ' Have you not seen him too, my Father ? '
she said.
" I looked at her, thinking she was mad, but
she held me by the arm and blinked up at me,
and seemed in her senses. I told her to tell me
what she meant, but she would not. At last I
promised to say the Masses at once. The next
morning I began the Masses, and said four of
them, and at each the old woman was there close
to me, for I said them at the altar of S. Espedito,
that was in the nave, as she had asked me, and I
had a great devotion to him as well, and she was
always at her chair just outside the altar-rails.
I scarcely saw her, of course, for I was a young
priest and had been taught not to lift my eyes
FATHER BIANCHI'S STORY 143
when I turned round, but on the fourth day I
looked at her at the Orate fratres, and she was
staring not at me or the altar, but at the corner
on the left. I looked there when I turned, there
was nothing but the glass-case with the silver
hearts in it to S. Espedito.
" That was on a Friday, and in the evening I
went to the church again to hear confessions,
and when I was done, the old woman was there
again.
" * They are nearly done, my Father,' she said,
* and you will finish them to-morrow ? '
" I told her Yes, but she made me promise that
whatever happened I would do so.
" Then she went on, * Then I will tell you, my
Father, what I would not before. I do not know
the man's name, but I see him each day during
Mass at that altar. He is in the corner. I have
seen him there ever since the church was built.'
" Well, I knew she was mad then, but I was
curious about it, and asked her to describe him
to me ; and she did so. I expected a man in a
sheet or in flames or something of the kind, but it
was not so. She described to me a man in a
dress she did not know a tunic to the knees,
bareheaded, with a short sword in his hand. Well,
then I saw what she meant she was thinking
144 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
of S. Espedito himself. He was a Roman soldier,
you remember, gentlemen ?
" c And a cuirass ? ' I said. ' A steel breast-
plate and helmet ? '
" Then she surprised me.
" ' Why, no, Father, he has nothing on his
head or breast, and there is a bull beside
him!'
" Well, gentlemen, I was taken aback by that.
I did not know what to say."
Monsignor leaned swiftly forward.
" Mithras," he said abruptly.
The Italian smiled.
" Monsignor knows everything," he said.
Then I broke in, because I was more interested
than I knew.
" Tell me, Monsignor, what was Mithras ? "
The priest explained shortly. It was an Eastern
worship, extraordinarily pure, introduced into
Italy a little after the beginning of the Christian.
Mithras was a god, filling a position not unlike
that of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.
He offered a perpetual sacrifice, and through
that sacrifice souls were enabled to rise from
earthly things to heavenly, if they relied upon
it and accompanied that faith by works of dis-
cipline and prayer. It was one of those shadows
FATHER BIANCHI'S STORY 145
of reality, said the Canon, of which pagan religions
are so full.
" I beg your pardon, Father Bianchi," he ended.
The Italian smiled again.
" Yes, Monsignor," he said, " I know that now,
but I did not know it for many years afterwards,
and I know something else now that I did not
know then. Well, to return.
" I told my old woman that she was dreaming,
that it could not be so, that there was no room
for a bull in the corner, that it was a picture of
S. Espedito that she was thinking of.
" * And why did you not get the Masses said
before ? ' I asked.
" She smiled rather slyly at me then.
" ' I did get five said once before,* she said, * in
Naples, but they did him no good. And when
once again I told the parrocho here, he told me to
be off ; he would not say them.'
" And she had waited for a young priest, it
seemed, and had determined nbrto tell him the
story till the Masses were said, and had saved up
her money meanwhile.
" Well, I went home, and got to talking with the
old priest, and led him on, so that he thought
that he had introduced the subject, and presently
he told me that when the foundation of the church
146 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
had been laid, forty years before, they had found
an old cave in the hill, with heathen things in it.
He knew no more than that about it, but he told
me to fetch a bit of pottery from a cupboard,
and he showed it me, and there was just the tail
of a bull upon it, and an eagle."
Monsignor leaned forward again.
"Just so," he said, " and the bull was lying
down."
The Italian nodded, and was silent.
We all looked at him. It seemed a tame
ending I thought. Then Father Brent put our
thoughts into words.
" That is not all ? " he said.
Father Bianchi looked at him sharply, and at
all of us, but said nothing.
" Ah ! that is not all," said the other again,
persistently.
" Bah ! " cried the Italian suddenly. " It
was not all, if you will have it so. But the rest is
madness, as mad as Giovannina herself. What
I saw, I saw because she made me expect it. It
was nothing but the shadow, or the light in the
glass case."
A perceptible thrill ran through us all. The
abrupt change from contempt to seriousness was
very startling.
FATHER BIANCHI'S STORY 147
"Tell us, Father," said the English priest,
" we shall think no worse of you for it. If it
was only the shadow, what harm is there in telling
it ?"
" Indeed you must finish," went on Monsignor ;
"it is in the contract."
The Italian looked round again, frowned, smiled,
and laughed uneasily.
" I have told it to no one till to-day," he said,
" but you shall hear it. But it was only the
shadow you understand that ? "
A chorus, obviously insincere, broke out from
the room.
" It was only the shadow, Padre Bianchi."
Again the priest laughed shortly ; the smile
faded, and he went on.
" I went down early the next morning, before
dawn, and I made my meditation before the
Blessed Sacrament ; but I could not help looking
across once or twice at the corner by S. Espedito's
altar ; it was too dark to see anything clearly,
but I could make out the silver hearts in the glass
case. When I had finished, Giovannina came in.
" I could not help stopping by her chair as I
went to rest.
" ' Is there anything there ? ' I asked.
" She shook her head at me.
148 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" l He is never there till Mass begins/ she said.
" The sacristy door that opens out of doors
was set wide as I came past it in my vestments ;
and the dawn was coming up across the hills, all
purple."
Monsignor murmured something, and the priest
stopped.
" I beg your pardon," said Monsignor, " but
that was the time the sacrifice of Mithras was
offered."
" When I came out into the church," went on
the priest, " it was all grey in the light of the
dawn, but the chapels were still dark. I went
up the steps, not daring to look in the corner, and
set the vessels down. As I was spreading the
corporal, the server came up and lighted the
candles. And still I dared not look. I turned
by the right and came down, and stood waiting
till he knelt beside me.
" Then I found I could not begin. I knew
what folly it was, but I was terribly frightened.
I heard the server whisper, In nomine Patris. . . .
" Then I shut my eyes tight ; and began.
" Well, by the time I had finished the prepara-
tion, I felt certain that something was watching
me from the corner. I told myself, as I tell my-
self now," snapped the Italian fiercely, " I told
FATHER BIANCHI'S STORY 149
myself it was but what the woman had, {told me.
And then at last I opened my eyes to go up the
steps but I kept them down ; and only saw the
dark corner out of the side of my eyes.
" Then I kissed the altar and began.
"Well, it was not until the Epistle that I
understood that I should have to face the corner
at the reading of the Gospel ; but by then I do
not think I could have faced it directly, even if
I had wished.
" So when I was saying the Munda cor in the
centre, I thought of a plan ; and as I went to
read the Gospel I put my left hand over my eyes,
as if I was in pain, and read the Gospel like that.
And so all through the Mass I went on ; I always
dropped my eyes when I had to turn that way
at all ; and I finished everything and gave the
blessing.
" As I gave it, I looked at the old woman, and
she was kneeling there, staring across at the
corner ; so I knew that she was still dreaming
she saw something.
" Then I went to read the Last Gospel."
The priest was plainly speaking with great
difficulty ; he passed his hands over his lips once
or twice. We were all quiet.
" Well, gentlemen courage came to me then ;
150 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
and as I signed the altar I looked straight into the
corner."
He stopped again ; and began resolutely once
more ; but his voice rang with hysteria.
" Well, gentlemen, you understand that my
head was full of it now, and that the corner was
dark, and the shadows were very odd."
" Yes, yes, Padre Bianchi," said Monsignor,
easily, " and what did the shadows look like ? "
The Italian gripped the arms of the chair, and
screamed his answer :
" I will not tell you, I will not tell you. It was
but the shadow. My God, why have I told you
the tale at all ? "
VII
Father Jenks' Tale
VII
Father Jenks' Tale
I HAVE not yet had occasion to describe
Father Jenks, the Ontario priest ; partly,
I think, because he had not previously
distinguished himself by anything but silence ;
and partly because he was so true to his type
that I had scarcely noticed even that.
It was not until the following evening, when
he was seated in the central chair of the group,
that I really observed him sufficiently to take in
his characteristics with any definiteness and to
see how wholly he was American. He was clean-
shaven ; with a heavy mouth, square jaw, and
an air of something that I must call dulness,
relieved only by a spark of alertness in each of his
eyes, as he leaned back and began his story. He
spoke deliberately, in an even voice, and as he
spoke looked steadily a little above the fire ; his
hands lay together on his right knee which was
crossed over his left ; and I noticed a large elastic-
sided boot cocked toward the warmth. I knew
that he had passed a great part of his early life
u-(jooo) 163
154 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
in England ; and I was not surprised to observe
that he spoke with hardly a trace of American
accent or phraseology.
" I, too, am a man of one story," he said ;
" and I daresay you may think it not worth
the telling. But it impressed me."
He looked round with heavy, amused eyes as
if to apologize.
" It was when I was in England in the
eighties. I was in the Cots wolds. You know
them perhaps ? "
Again he looked round. Monsignor Maxwell
jerked the ash off his cigarette impatiently. This
American's air of leisure was a little tiresome.
" I lived in a cottage," went on the other, " at
the edge of Minchester, not two hundred yards
from the old church. My own schism shop, as
the parson called it once or twice in the local
paper, was a tin building behind my house it
was not beautiful. It was a kind of outlandish
stranger beside the church ; and the parson
made the most of that. I never was able to
understand ."
He broke off again, and pressed his lips in a
reminiscent smile.
" Now all that part of the Cots wolds is like a
table : it is flat at the top with steep sides sloping
FATHER JENKS' TALE 155
down into the valleys. The great houses stand
mostly half-way down these slopes. It is too
windy on the top for their trees and gardens. The
Dominicans have a house a few miles from Min-
chester, up one of the opposite hills, and I would
go across there to my confession on Saturday,
and stay an hour or two over tea, talking to one
of them. It was there that I heard the tale of
the house I am going to speak about.
" This was a house that stood not two miles
from my own village a great place, built half-
way down one of the slopes. It had been a
Benedictine house once, though there was little
enough of that part left ; most of it was red-brick
with twisted chimneys, but on the lawn that
sloped down toward the wood and the stream
at the bottom of the valley there was the west
arch of the nave still standing with the doorway
beneath and a couple of chapels on either side.
Mrs. er Arbuthnot we will call her, if you
please had laid it out with a rockery beneath ;
and once I saw her, from the hill behind, drinking
tea with her friends in one of the chapels.
"Then the dining-room, I heard from the
Dominicans, had been the abbot's chapel. This,
too, was what they told me. The house had been
shut up for forty years, and had a bad name.
156 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
It had once been a farm ; but things had
happened there : the sons had died ; a famous
horse bred there had broken its neck somehow on
the lawn. Then another family had taken it from
the owner ; and the only son of the lot too had
died ; and then folks began to talk about a
curse ; and the oldest inhabitant was trotted
out as usual to make mischief and gossip ; and
the end was the house was shut up.
" Then the owner had built on to it. He pulled
down a bit more of the ruins, meaning to live in
it himself ; and then his son went up."
The Canadian smiled with one corner of his
mouth.
" This is what I heard from the Dominicans,
you know."
Father Brent looked up swiftly.
" They are right though," he said. " I know
the house and others like it."
" Yes, Father," said the other priest. " Your
island has its points."
He recrossed his legs and drew out his pipe and
pouch.
" Well, as this priest says, there are other
houses like it. Otherwise I could scarcely tell
this tale. It's too ancient and feudal to happen
in my country."
FATHER JENKS' TALE 157
He paused so long to fill his pipe that Father
Maxwell sighed aloud.
" Yes, Monsignor," said the priest without
looking up. " I am going on immediately."
He put his pipe into the corner of his mouth,
took out his matches, and went on.
" Well, Mrs. Arbuthnot had taken the house a
year before I came to Minchester. She was what
the Dominicans called a frivolous woman ; but
I called her real solid before the end. What they
meant was that she had parties down there and
tea in the chapel, and a dresser with blue plates
where the altar used to stand in the abbot's
time, and a vestment for her fire-screen, and
all that ; and a couple of chestnuts that she used
to drive about the country with, and a groom in
boots, and a couple of fellows with powdered
hair to help her in and out.
" Well, I saw all that at a garden party she
gave ; and I must say we got on very well. I had
seen her before once or twice out of my window
on Sunday morning going along with a morocco
prayer-book with a cross on it, and a bonnet on
the back of her head. Then I showed her round
the old church one day with some visitors of hers,
and she left a card on me next day.
"On the day of the garden party I saw the
158 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
house, and the blue china and the rest, and she
asked me what I thought of it all, and I said it
was very nice ; and she asked me whether I
thought it wrong, with a sort of cackle ; and I
told her she had better follow her own religious
principles and let me follow mine, and not have
any exchanges. She told me then I was a sensible
man, and she called up her son to introduce us.
He was a fellow of twenty or so, a bright lad, up
at Oxford. He was just engaged to be married,
too ; that was why they had the party ; and
when I saw his girl, I thought things looked pretty
unwholesome for the old house ; and I think I
said so to the old lady. She thought me more
sensible than ever after that, and I heard her
telling another old body what I had said."
The Canadian paused again to strike a match ;
and I saw the corners of his mouth twitching,
either with the effort to draw, or with amuse-
ment I scarcely knew which. When the pipe
was well alight, he went on :
" It was on the last Sunday of September that
year that I heard the young man was ill and that
the marriage was put off. I remember it well,
partly because they were having a high time at
the church, decorating it all for Michaelmas,
which was next day, with the parson pretending
FATHER JENKS' TALE 159
it was for Harvest Festival, as they always do.
I had seen the pumpkins go in the day before,
and wondered where they put them all. I went
up to the churchyard after Mass to have a look,
and was nearly knocked down by the parson. I
began to say something or other, but he ran past
me, through from the vicarage, with his coat-tails
flying and his man after him. But I stopped
the man, and got out of him that Archie was ill ;
and that the parson was sent for.
" Well, then I went back home and sat down."
The priest drew upon his pipe in silence a
moment or two.
I felt rather impressed. His airy manner of
talking was shot now with a kind of seriousness ;
and I wondered what was coming next.
He went on almost immediately.
" I heard a bit more as the day wore on. One
of my people stayed after Catechism to tell me
that the young man was worse, that a doctor had
come from Stroud, and another had been wired
for from London.
" Well, I waited. I thought I knew what would
happen. I thought I had seen a bit more in the
old lady than the Dominicans had seen ; but what
I was going to say to her I knew no more than the
dead.
160 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Then, that night as I was going to bed I had
just said matins and lauds for Michaelmas day
the message came.
" I was half-way upstairs when I heard a knock-
ing at the door ; and I went down again and
opened it. There was one of the fellows there I
had seen on the box of the carriage ; and he was
out of breath with running. He had a lantern in
his hand ; because there was a thick mist that
night, up from the valley.
" He gave me the lady's compliments ; and
would I step down ? Master Archie was ill.
That was all."
" Well, in a minute we were off into the thick
of the mist. I took nothing with me but my stole,
for it was not a proper sick-call. We said little
or nothing to each other. He just told me that
Master Archie had been taken ill about ten o'clock,
quite suddenly. He didn't know what it was."
The priest paused again for a moment.
Then he went on, almost apologetically.
" You know how it is, gentlemen, when
something runs in your head. It may be a
tune or a sentence. And I don't know if
you've noticed how strong it is sometimes when
you have something on your mind.
" Well, what ran in my head was a bit of the
FATHER JENKS' TALE 161
Office I had just said. It was this I have never
forgotten it since Stetit Angelus juxta aram
templi habens thuribulum aureum in manu sua."
He said it again ; and then added :
" It comes frequently in the Office, you remem-
ber. It was very natural to remember it."
" Well, in half-an-hour we were at the top of
the hill above the house. I think there must
have been a moon, because we could see the mist
round us like smoke ; but nothing of the house,
nor even the lights in the top floors below us
It was all white and misty.
" Then we started down through the iron gate
and the plantation. I could have lost my way
again and again but for the fellow with me ;
and still we saw nothing of the house till we were
close to it on one side ; and then I looked up and
saw a window like a great yellow door overhead.
" We came round to the front of the house ;
and there was a carriage there drawn up, with the
lamps smoking in the mist, and as we came up I
saw that the horses were steaming and blowing.
He had just brought the London doctor from
Stroud and was waiting for orders, I suppose."
The Canadian paused again.
I was more interested than ever.^His descrip-
tions had become queerly particular ; and I
162 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
wondered why. I did not understand yet. The
rest too were very quiet.
" We went in through the hall past the stuffed
bear that held the calling cards and all that, you
know ; and then turned in to the left to the big
dining-room that had been the abbot's chapel.
Some fool had left the window open I suppose
they were too flurried to think of it. At any
rate, the mist had got in, and made the gas-jets
overhead look high up like great stars.
" There was a door open upstairs somewhere,
and I could hear whispering.
" Well, we went up the staircase that opened
on one side below the gallery that they had put
up above the eastern end. The footpace was
still there, you know, below the gallery, and the
sideboard stood there.
" We came out onto the gallery presently, and
my man stopped.
" Then some one came out with Mrs. Arbuth-
not, and the door closed. She saw me standing
there and I thought she was going to scream ;
but the fellow with her in the fur coat he was
the London doctor, I heard afterwards took her
by the arm.
" Well, she was quiet enough then, but as white
as death. She had her bonnet on still, just as she
FATHER JENKS' TALE 163
must have put it on to go to church with in the
morning when the young man was taken ill.
She beckoned me along and I went.
" As I was going past the doctor he first shook
his head at me and then whispered, as I went on,
to keep her quiet. I knew there was no hope
then for Archie, and I was sorry, very sorry,
gentlemen."
The priest shook his own head meditatively
once or twice, leaned forward and spat accurately
into the heart of the fire.
" Well, it was a big room that I went into, and,
to tell the truth, I left the door open this time,
because I was startled by the screen at the bed and
all that.
" The screen stood in the corner by the window
to keep off the draught, and the bed to one side
of it. I could just catch a glimpse of the lad's
face on the pillow and the local doctor close by
him. There was a woman or two there as well.
" But the worst was that the lad was talking
and moaning out loud ; but I didn't attend to
him then, and, besides, Mrs. Arbuthnot had gone
through by another door and I went after her.
" It was a kind of dressing-room Archie's
perhaps. There was a tall glass and silver things
on the table by the window, and a candle or
164 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
two burning. She turned round there and faced
me, and she looked so deathly that I forgot all
about the lad for the present. I just looked out
to catch her when she fell. I had seen a woman
like that once or twice before.
" Well, she said all that I expected all about
the curse and that, and the sins of the fathers,
and it was all her fault for taking the beastly
place, and how she would swear to clear out I
couldn't get a word in and at last she said she'd
become a Catholic if the boy lived.
" I did get a word in then, and told her not to
talk nonsense. The Church didn't want people
like that. They must believe first, and so on
and all the while I was looking out to catch her.
" Well, she didn't hear a word I said, but she
sat down all of a sudden, and I sat down too,
opposite her, and all the while the boy's voice
grew louder and louder from the next room.
" Then she started again, but she hadn't been
under way a minute before I had given over
attending to her. I was listening to the lad."
The priest stopped again abruptly. His pipe
had gone out, but he sucked at it hard and seemed
not to notice it. His eyes were oddly alert.
" As I was listening I looked toward the door
into the next room. Both that and the one with
FATHER JENKS' TALE 165
the gallery over the hall were open, and I saw
the mist coming in like smoke.
" I couldn't catch every word the lad said. He
was talking in a high droning voice, but I caught
enough. It was about a face looking at him
through smoke.
* His eyes are like flames,' he said, * smoky
flames yellow hair Are you a priest ? . . .
What is that red dress ? 'things like that.
Well, it seemed pretty tolerable nonsense, and
then I "
Monsignor Maxwell sat up suddenly.
" Good Lord ! " he said.
" Yes," drawled the Canadian. " stetit Angelus
habens thuribulum aureum."
He spoke so placidly that I was almost
shocked. It seemed astonishing that a man
Then he went on again :
" Well, I stood up when I heard that, and I
faced the old lady.
" ' What's the dedication of the chapel,' I said.
' What's the saint ? Tell me, woman, tell me ! '
There ! I said it like that.
"Well, she didn't know what I meant, of
course, but I got it out of her at last. Of course,
it was St. Michael's.
" 1 sat down then and let her chatter on. I
166 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
suppose I must have looked a fool, because she
took me by the shoulder directly.
" ' You aren't listening, Father Jenks,' she said.
" I attended to her then. It seemed as if she
wanted me to do something to save him, but I
don't think she knew what it was herself, and I'm
sure I didn't, not at first at least.
" Then she began again, and all the while the
boy was crying out. She wanted to know if her
becoming a Catholic would do any good, and to
tell the truth I wasn't so sure then myself as I
had been before. Then she said she'd give up the
house to Catholics, and then at last she
said this :
" < Will you take it oif, Father ? I know you
can. Priests can do anything.'
" ' Well, I stiffened myself up at that. I was
sensible enough not to make a fool of myself, and
I said something like this."
He stopped again ; sucked vigorously at his
cold pipe.
" I said something like this : ' Mind you
keep your promise,' I said, ' but as far as I am
concerned, I'd let him off.' "
A curious rustle passed round the room, and
the priest caught the sound.
" Yes, gentlemen, I said that. I did indeed, and
FATHER JENKS' TALE 167
I guess most of you gentlemen would have done
the same in my circumstances.
" And this is what happened.
" First the lad's voice stopped, then there was
a whispering, then a footstep in the other room,
and the next moment Mrs. Arbuthnot was on
her feet, with her mouth opened to scream. I
had her down again though in time, and, when
I turned, a woman was at the door and I could
see she had closed the outer door through which
the mist came.
" Well, her face told us. The lad had taken the
right turn. It was something on the brain, I
think, that had dispersed or broken, or something
I forget now but it seemed to come in pat
enough, didn't it, gentlemen ? "
The Canadian stopped and leaned back. Was
that the end, then ?
Father Brent put my question into words.
" And what happened ? "
" Well," added the other, drawling more than
ever, " Mrs. Arbuthnot did not keep her promise.
She's there still, for all I know, and attends the
Harvest Festivals as regular as ever. That spoils
the story, doesn't it ? "
" And the son ? " put in the English priest
swiftly.
168 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
"Well, the son was a bit better. That
marriage did not take place. The girl broke
it off."
" Well ? "
" And Archie's at the English College at this
moment studying for the priesthood. I had tea
with him at Aragno's yesterday."
VIII
Father Martin's Tale
i a <*xx
VIII
Father Martin's Tale
THE Father Rector announced to us one
day at dinner that a friend of his from
England had called upon him a day or
two before ; and that he had asked him to supper
that evening.
" There is a story I heard him tell," he said,
" some years ago, that I think he would
contribute if you cared to ask him, Monsignor.
It is remarkable ; I remember thinking so."
" To-night ? " said Monsignor.
' Yes ; he is coming to-night."
" That will do very well," said the other, " we
have no story for to-night."
Father Martin appeared at supper ; a grey-
haired old man, with a face like a mouse, and
large brown eyes that were generally cast down.
He had a way at table of holding his hands
together with his elbows at his side that bore out
the impression of his face.
171
172 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
He looked up deprecatingly and gave a little
nervous laugh as Monsignor put his request.
"It is a long time since I have told it,
Monsignor/' he said.
" That is the more reason for telling it again,"
said the other priest with his sharp geniality, " or
it may be lost to humanity."
" It has met with incredulity," said the old
man.
" It will not meet with it here, then," remarked
Monsignor. " We have been practising ourselves
in the art of believing. Another act of faith will
do us no harm."
We explained the circumstances.
Father Martin looked round ; and I could see
that he was pleased.
" Very well, Monsignor," he said, " I will do
my best to make it easy."
When we had reached the room upstairs, the
old priest was put into the arm-chair in the centre,
drawn back a little so that all might see him ; he
refused tobacco, propped his chin on his two
hands, looking more than ever like a venerable
mouse, and began his story. I sat at the end of
the semi-circle, near the fire, and watched him as
he talked.
FATHER MARTIN'S TALE 173
" I regret I have not heard the other tales,"
he said ; "it would encourage me in my own.
But perhaps it is better so. I have told this so
often that I can only tell it in one way, and you
must forgive me, gentlemen, if my way is not
yours.
" About twenty years ago I had charge of a
mission in Lancashire, some fourteen miles from
Blackburn, among the hills. The name of the
place is Monkswell ; it was a little village then,
but I think it is a town now. In those days
there was only one street, of perhaps a dozen
houses on each side. My little church stood at
the head of the street, with the presbytery beside
it. The house had a garden at the back, with a
path running through it to the gate ; and beyond
the gate was a path leading on to the moor.
" Nearly all the village was Catholic, and had
always been so ; and I had perhaps a hundred
more of my folk scattered about the moor. Their
occupation was weaving ; that was before the
coal was found at Monkswell. Now they have
a great church there with a parish of over a
thousand.
" Of course, I knew all my people well enough ;
they are wonderful folk, those Lancashire folk,
174 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
I could tell you a score of tales of their devotion
and faith. There was one woman that I could
make nothing of. She lived with her two brothers
in a little cottage a couple of miles away from
Monkswell ; and the three kept themselves by
weaving. The two men were fine lads, regular at
their religious duties, and at Mass every Sunday.
But the woman would not come near the church.
I went to her again and again ; and before every
Easter ; but it was of no use. She would not
even tell me why she would not come ; but I
knew the reason. The poor creature had been
ruined in Blackburn, and could not hold up her
head again. Her brothers took her back, and
she had lived with them for ten years, and never
once during that time, so far as I knew, had she
set foot outside her little place. She could not
bear to be seen, you see."
The little pointed face looked very tender and
compassionate now, and the brown, beady eyes
ran round the circle deprecatingly.
" Well, it was one Sunday in January that
Alfred told me that his sister was unwell. It
seemed to be nothing serious, he said, and of
course he promised to let me know if she should
FATHER MARTIN'S TALE 175
become worse. But I made up my mind that I
would go in any case during that week, and see
if sickness had softened her at all. Alfred told
me too that another brother of his, Patrick, on
whom, let it be remembered " and he held up
an admonitory hand " I had never set eyes, was
coming up to them on the next day from London,
for a week's holiday. He promised he would
bring him to see me later on in the week.
" There was a fall of snow that afternoon, not
very deep, and another next day, and I thought
I would put off my walk across the hills until
it melted, unless I heard that Sarah was
worse.
" It was on the Wednesday evening about six
o'clock that I was sent for.
" I was sitting in my study on the ground floor
with the curtains drawn, when I heard the garden
gate open and close, and I ran out into the hall,
just as the knock came at the back door. I
knew that it was unlikely that any should come
at that hour, and in such weather, except for a
sick-call ; and I opened the door almost before
the knocking had ended.
" The candle was blown out by the draught,
but I knew Alfred's voice at once.
" ' She is worse, Father,' he said, ' for God's
176 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
sake come at once. I think she wishes for the
Sacraments. I am going on for the doctor.'
" I knew by his voice that it was serious,
though I could not see his face ; I could only see
his figure against the snow outside ; and before
I could say more than that I would come at once,
he was gone again, and I heard the garden door
open and shut. He was gone down to the
doctor's house, I knew, a mile further down
the valley.
" I shut the hall door without bolting it, and
went to the kitchen and told my housekeeper to
grease my boots well and set them in my room
with my cloak and hat and muffler and my
lantern. I told her I had had a sick-call and did
not know when I should be back ; she had better
put the pot on the fire and I would help myself
when I came home.
" Then I ran into the church through the
sacristy to 'fetch the holy oils and the Blessed
Sacrament.
" When I came back, I noticed that one of the
strings of the purse that held the pyx was frayed,
and I set it down on the table to knot it properly.
Then again I heard the garden gate open and
shut."
FATHER MARTIN'S TALE 177
The priest lifted his eyes and looked round
again ; there was something odd in his
look.
" Gentlemen, we are getting near the point of
the story. I will ask you to listen very carefully
and to give me your conclusions afterwards. I
am relating to you only events, as they
happened historically. I give you my word
as to their truth."
There was a murmur of assent.
" Well, then," he went on, " at first I supposed
it was Alfred come back again for some reason.
I put down the string and went to the door with-
out a light. As I reached the threshold there
came a knocking.
" I turned the handle and a gust of wind burst
in, as it had done five minutes before. There
was a figure standing there, muffled up as the
other had been.
" ' What is it ? ' I said, ' I am just coming. Is
it you, Alfred ? '
' No, Father,' said a voice the man was on
the steps a yard from me ' I came to say that
Sarah was better and does not wish for the
Sacraments.'
" Of course I was startled at that.
178 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" ' Why ! who are you ? ' I said. ' Are you
Patrick ? '
" ' Yes, Father/ said the man, ' I am Patrick.'
" I cannot describe his voice, but it was
not extraordinary in any way ; it was a little
muffled : I supposed he had a comforter over his
mouth. I could not see his face at all. I could
not even see if he was stout or thin, the wind
blew about his cloak so much.
" As I hesitated, the door from the kitchen
behind me was flung open, and I heard a very
much frightened voice calling :
" ' Who's that, Father ? ' said Hannah.
" I turned round.
" ' It is Patrick Oldroyd/ I said. ' He is come
from his sister.'
" I could see the woman standing in the light
from the kitchen door ; she had her hands out
before her as if she were frightened at something.
' Go out of the draught,' I said.
" She went back at that ; but she did not
close the door, and I knew she was listening to
every word.
' Come in, Patrick,' I said, turning round
again.
" I could see he had moved down a step, and
was standing on the gravel now.
FATHER MARTIN'S TALE 179
" He came up again then, and I stood aside
to let him go past me into my study. But he
stopped at the door. Still I could not see his
face it was dark in the hall, you remember.
'"No, Father,' he said, ' I cannot wait. I
must go after Alfred/
" I put out my hand toward him, but he slipped
past me quickly, and was out again on the gravel
before I could speak.
" ' Nonsense ! ' I said. ' She will be none the
worse for a doctor ; and if you will wait a minute
I will come with you/
" ' You are not wanted/ he said rather
offensively, I thought. ' I tell you she is better,
Father : she will not see you/
" I was a little angry at that. I was not
accustomed to be spoken to in that way.
" ' That is very well/ I said, ' but I shall come
for all that, and if you do not wish to walk with
me, I shall walk alone/
" He was turning to go, but he faced me again
then.
' Do not come, Father/ he said. ' Come
to-morrow. I tell you she will not see you. You
know what Sarah is/
' I know very well/ I said, ' she is out of
grace, and I know what will be the end of her if
180 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
I do not come. I tell you I am coming, Patrick
Oldroyd. So you can do as you please.'
" I shut the door and went back into my room,
and as I went, the garden gate opened and shut
once more.
11 My hands trembled a little as I began to knot
the string of the pyx ; I supposed then that I
had been more angered than I had known " the
old priest looked round again swiftly and dropped
his eyes " but I do not now think that it was
only anger. However, you shall hear."
He had moved himself by now to the very
edge of his chair where he sat crouched up with his
hands together. The listeners were all very quiet.
" I had hardly begun to knot the string before
Hannah came in. She bobbed at the door when
she saw what I was holding, and then came
forward. I could see that she was very much
upset by something.
" ' Father,' she said, ' for the love of God do
not go with that man.'
' I am ashamed of you, Hannah,' I told her.
' What do you mean ? '
' Father,' she said, ' I am afraid. I do not
like that man. There is something the matter/
" I rose ; laid the pyx down and went to my
boots without saying anything.
FATHER MARTIN'S TALE 181
" ' Father,' she said again, ' for the love of God
do not go I tell you I was frightened when I
heard his knock.'
" Still I said nothing ; but put on my boots
and went to the table where the pyx lay and the
case of oils.
" She came right up to me, and I could see that
she was as white as death as she stared at me.
" I finished putting on my cloak, wrapped the
comforter round my neck, put on my hat and
took up the lantern.
" ' Father,' she said again.
" I looked her full in the face then as she knelt
down.
" ' Hannah,' I said, ' I am going. Patrick has
gone after his brother.'
"'It is not Patrick,' she cried after me ; ' I
tell you, Father "
" Then I shut the door and left her kneeling
there.
" It was very dark when I got down the steps ;
and I hadn't gone a yard along the path before
I stepped over my knee into a drift of snow. It
had banked up against a gooseberry bush. Well,
I saw that I must go carefully ; so I stepped
back on to the middle of the path, and held my
lantern low.
182 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" I could see the marks of the two men plain
enough ; it was a path that I had made broad on
purpose so that I could walk up and down to
say my office without thinking much of where I
stepped.
" There was one track on this side, and one
on that.
" Have you ever noticed, gentlemen, that a
man in snow will nearly always go back over his
own traces, in preference to any one else's ? Well,
that is so : and it was so in this case.
" When I got to the garden gate I saw that
Alfred had turned off to the right on his way to
the doctor ; his marks were quite plain in the
light of the lantern, going down the hill. But I
was astonished to see that the other man had not
gone after him as he said he would ; for there
was only one pair of footmarks going down
the hill ; and the other track was plain enough,
coming and going. The man must have gone
straight home again, I thought.
Now "
" One moment, Father Martin," said Monsignor
leaning forward ; " draw the two lines of tracks
here." He put a pencil and paper into the
priest's hands.
Father Martin scribbled for a moment or two
FATHER MARTIN'S TALE 183
and then held up the paper so that we could all
see it.
As he explained I understood. He had drawn
a square for the house, a line for the garden
wall, and through the gap ran four lines, marked
with arrows. Two ran to the house and two
back as far as the gate ; at this point one curved
sharply round to the right and one straight across
the paper beside that which marked the coming.
"I noticed all this/ 1 said the old priest
emphatically, " because I determined to follow
along the double track so far as Sarah Oldroyd's
house ; and I kept the light turned on to it.
I did not wish to slip into a snowdrift.
" Now, I was very much puzzled. I had been
thinking it over, of course, ever since the man
had gone, and I could not understand it. I must
confess that my housekeeper's words had not made
it clearer. I knew she did not know Patrick ;
he had never been home since she had come to
me. I was surprised, too, at his behaviour, for
I knew from his brother that he was a good
Catholic ; and well, you understand, gentle-
men it was very puzzling. But Hannah was
Irish, and I knew they had strange fancies
sometimes.
' Then, there was something else, which I had
184 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
better mention before I go any further. Although
I had not been frightened when the man came,
yet, when Hannah had -said that she was
frightened, I knew what she meant. It had
seemed to me natural that she should be
frightened. I can say no more than that."
He threw out his hands deprecatingly, and
then folded them again sedately on his hunched
knees.
" Well, I set out across the moor, following
carefully in the double track of of the man who
called himself Patrick. I could see Alfred's
single track a yard to my right ; sometimes
the tracks crossed.
" I had no time to look about me much, but I
saw now and again the slopes to the north, and
once when I turned I saw the lights of the village
behind me, perhaps a quarter of a mile away.
Then I went on again and I wondered as I went.
" I will tell you one thing that crossed my
mind, gentlemen. I did wonder whether Hannah
had not been right, and if this was Patrick after
all. I thought it possible though I must say I
thought it very unlikely that it might be some
enemy of Sarah's some one she had offended
an infidel, perhaps, but who wished her to die
without the Sacraments that she wanted. I
FATHER MARTIN'S TALE 185
thought that ; but I never dreamt of of what I
thought afterwards and think now."
He looked round again, clasped his hands more
tightly and went on.
" It was very rough going, and as I climbed up
at last on to the little shoulder of hill that was
the horizon from my house, I stopped to get my
breath and turned round again to look behind me.
" I could see my house-lights at the end of the
village, and the church beside it, and I wondered
that I could see the lights so plainly. Then I
understood that Hannah must be in my study
and that she had drawn the blind up to watch
my lantern going across the snow.
" I am ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that
that cheered me a little ; I do not quite know why,
but I must confess that I was uncomfortable
I know that I should not have been, carrying
what I did, and on such an errand, but I was
uneasy. It seemed very lonely out there, and
the white sheets of snow made it worse. I do
not think that I should have minded the dark so
much. There was not much wind and everything
was very quiet. I could just hear the stream
running down in the valley behind me. The
clouds had gone and there was a clear night of
stars overhead."
186 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
The old priest stopped ; his lips worked a
little, as I had seen them before, two or three
times, during his story. Then he sighed, looked
at us and went on.
" Now, gentlemen, I entreat you to believe me.
This is what happened next. You remember
that this point at which I stopped to take breath
was the horizon from my house. Notice that.
" Well, I turned round, and lowered my
lantern again to look at the tracks, and a yard
in front of me they ceased. They ceased."
He paused again, and there was not a sound
from the circle.
" They ceased, gentlemen. I swear it to you,
and I cannot describe what I felt. At first I
thought it was a mistake ; that he had leapt a
yard or two that the snow was frozen. It was
not so.
" There a yard to the right were Alfred's tracks,
perfectly distinct, with the toes pointing the way
from which I had come. There was no confusion,
no hard or broken ground, there was just the soft
surface of the snow, the trampled path of of
the man's footsteps and mine, and Alfred's a yard
or two away."
The old man did not look like a mouse now ;
his eyes were large and bright, his mouth severe,
FATHER MARTIN'S TALE 187
and his hands hung in the air in a petrified
gesture.
" If he had leapt," he said, " he did not alight
again."
He passed his hand over his mouth once or
twice.
" Well, gentlemen, I confess that I hesitated.
I looked back at the lights and then on again at
the slopes in front, and then I was ashamed of
myself. I did not hesitate long, for any place
was better than that. I went on ; I dared not
run ; for I think I should have gone mad if I
had lost self-control ; but I walked, and not too
fast, either ; I put my hand on the pyx as it lay
on my breast, but I dared not turn my head to
right or left. I just stared at Alfred's tracks in
front of me and trod in them.
" Well, gentlemen, I did run the last hundred
yards ; the door of the Oldroyds' cottage was
open, and they were looking out for me and I
gave Sarah the last Sacraments, and heard her
confession. She died before morning.
" And I have one confession to make myself
I did not go home that night. They were very
courteous to me when I told them the story, and
made out that they did not wish me to leave their
188 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
sister ; so the doctor and Alfred walked back
over the moor together to tell Hannah I should
not be back, and that all was well with me.
" There, gentlemen."
" And Patrick ? " said a voice.
" Patrick of course had not been out that
night."
IX
Mr. Bosanquet's Tale
IX
Mr. Bosanquet's Tale
I THINK that it was on the second Sunday
evening that Father Brent brought in his
guest. There was a function of ^some kind
at S. Silvestro I forget the occasion ; a Cardinal
had given Benediction and a reception was to
follow. At any rate there were only three of us
at home, the German, Father Brent and myself.
Of course we talked of our symposium, and the
guest, a middle-aged layman, seemed to listen
with interest, but he did not say very much.
He was a brown-bearded man ; he ate slowly
and deliberately, and I must confess that I was
not particularly impressed with him. Neither
did Father Brent try to draw him out. I noticed
that he looked at him questioningly once or
twice, but he did not actually express his
thought till after a little speech from Father
Stein.
" But it is a little tiresome to me," said the
German, " this talk of footsteps and voices and
visions. If that world in which we believe is
191
192 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
spiritual, as we know it is, how is it that it
presents itself to us under material images ?
These things are but appearances, but what
is the reality ? "
Father Brent turned to his friend.
" WeU ? " he said, " what now ? "
Mr. Bosanquet smiled and became grave again
over his pastry.
" You will repeat it then ? " persisted the priest.
The Englishman looked up for an instant, and
I met his grave eyes.
" If these gentlemen really wish it," he said
briefly.
Father Brent sighed with satisfaction.
" That is excellent," he said.
Then he explained.
Mr. Bosanquet had a story, it seemed, but had
entirely refused to relate it to a mixed company.
He had had a certain experience once which had
changed his life and it was not an experience to
be described at random. There was no ghost
in it ; it was wholly unsensational, but it had,
Father Brent thought, a peculiar interest of its
own. He had persuaded his friend to sup with
us, knowing that we should be but few, and hoping
that the atmosphere might be found favourable.
This was the gist of what he was saying, but he
MR. BOSANQUET'S TALE 193
was interrupted by the entrance of Beppo with
the coffee.
" Shall we have coffee upstairs ? " he said.
Then we rose and went upstairs.
It was a few minutes before we settled down ;
and Mr. Bosanquet seemed in no hurry to begin.
But a silence fell presently, and finally the young
priest leaned forward.
" Now Bosanquet," he said.
Mr. Bosanquet set his cup down, crossed his
legs and began. He spoke in a very quiet,
unemotional voice.
" My friend has told you that this experience
of mine is unsensational. In a manner of
speaking he is right. It is unsensational, since
it deals with nothing other than that which
we must all go through sooner or later; but
I think it has a certain interest from the fact
that it is an experience of which, except under
very peculiar circumstances, none of us will
ever be able to give an account. It concerns
the act of dying."
He paused for a moment.
" Yes ; the act of dying," he repeated, " for
I firmly believe that that is precisely what I did.
I passed the point on which death is dogmatically
194 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
declared by the doctors to have taken place. I
underwent, that is, what is called " legal death,"
but I did not of course reach that further state
called " somatic death."
Father Brent voiced my question.
" Please explain," he said.
" Oh well. The body, as we know, consists
of cells ; but there is a certain unity, usually
identified with the vital principle, which merges
these into one entity so that if one member
suffer all the members suffer with it. Legal
death is when this vital principle leaves the body.
The lungs cease to act ; the heart is motionless.
But when this has taken place there yet remains
a further stage. The cells, for a certain period,
have a kind of life of their own. There is no
vital union between them ; the nerve system is
suspended ; and somatic death, marked by the
rigor mortis, the stiffening of the cells, indicates
the moment when the cells too, even individually,
cease to live. But the man is dead, doctors
tell us, sometimes many hours before rigor
mortis sets in. In fact, in the case of some of
the saints, rigor mortis appears never to have
set in at all ; their limbs, we are told, retain soft-
ness and elasticity. There is no corruption, at
least in the ordinary sense."
MR. BOSANQUET'S TALE 195
Father Stein grunted and nodded.
" In my case," pursued the Englishman, *' I
was declared dead, and, as I learned afterwards,
remained in that state about half-an-hour. It
was after my body had been washed and the
face bound up, that I returned to life."
I sat up in my chair at that. At least he was
explicit enough. He glanced at me.
" I can show you my death certificate, if you
care to come to my hotel to-morrow," he said.
" I obtained it from the doctor cancelled
however, you understand.
" Well this is what took place.
" The cause of death was exhaustion, following
upon angina pectoris with other complications.
I will spare you the details, and begin at once at
the point at which I was declared to be dying.
Up to that point I had suffered extraordinary
agony, tempered by morphia. I did not know
that such pain was possible. . . . At the moments
of the spasms, before each injection took effect,
it seemed to me that I did not suffer pain, so
much as become pain. There was no room for
anything else but pain. Then there came the
beginning of the dulness of it ; it retired and
stood off from me. I was still conscious of it, as
of a storm passing away, till all sank into a kind
196 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
of peace. Then, after a long while as it seemed,
the dulness lifted, and I came up again to the
surface, becoming aware of the world, though of
course this bore a certain aspect of unreality,
owing to the effects of the drug.
" Well, I said I would leave all that out.
" The last time I came up, I knew I was dying.
It was all quite different. Things no longer bore
that close relation to me that they had had before.
I opened my eyes just enough to let me see my
hands lying out on the counterpane, and the
hillock of my feet, and even the lower part of the
brass supports at the end of my bed ; but I
could not raise my eyelids higher ; and almost
immediately I closed them again.
" The sense of touch too was changed.
Once or twice when I have been falling asleep in
my chair I have noticed the same phenomenon.
I could not tell by feeling unless I moved them
whether my fingers rested on the counterpane
or not. I did move them then, with that curious
clawing motion that dying people use, simply
in order to realize my relations with material
surroundings. That of course, as I know now,
is the reason of those motions. It is not an
involuntary contraction of the muscles ; it is the
will trying to get back into touch with the world.
MR. BOSANQUET'S TALE 197
" But the sense of hearing, oddly enough, was
almost preternaturally acute. Others under-
going anaesthetics have told me the same. It is
the last sense to leave them, and the first to
return. I could hear a continual minute series of
sounds not at all painfully loud, but absolutely
distinct. There was my sister's breathing,
irregular and uneven beside me. I knew by it
that she was trying not to break down. I could
hear four timepieces ticking her watch and the
doctor's, and that of the travelling clock over the
fire, and the Dutch clock in the hall below. Then
there were the country sounds in the distance, and
the breeze in the creepers outside my window.
" With regard to taste and smell they were
there a kind of sour sweetness, if I may say so
but they did not interest me ; they were below
my level, if I may express it like that.
" Well, I said just now that I knew I was
dying. It was as if through all my being there was
a steady, smooth retirement from the world. I
was perfectly able to reflect in fact I reflected as
I have never been able before or since. Do you
know the sensation of coming down from town
and sitting out in the darkness after dinner in
the garden ? The silence, after the clatter and
glare of London makes it possible, seems to let
198 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
the mind free. One is both alert and reflective
both at once. One's thoughts are the immediate
object of one's contemplation. It was rather
like that, only far more pronounced. And in
that freedom from the presence of matter I
realized perfectly what was happening.
" Now I must tell you at once that I was not at
all frightened. My religion seemed to stand off
from me with the rest of the world. I had been,
up to that time, what may be called a ' con-
ventional believer.' I had never doubted exactly
for I always realized that it was absurd for me
to criticize what was so obviously the highest
standard of morality and faith I mean Christ-
ianity. But neither was I particularly interested.
I had lived like other people. I attended church,
I repeated my prayers, and I had conventional
views of heaven, with which was mixed up a
good deal of agnosticism. In a word, I think I
may say that I had Hope, but not Faith not
Faith, that is, as you Catholics seem to have it."
This was the first hint I had had that Mr.
Bosanquet was not a Catholic, and I glanced up
at Father Brent. He too glanced at me in a
half warning, half suggestive look. I understood.
MR. BOSANQUET'S TALE 199
" I was not frightened, then," continued the
other tranquilly. " My religion, as I see now, was
altogether bound up with the world. Even my
thoughts went no further than images. I con-
ceived of heaven as in a picture, of our Lord as
a superhuman man, of death as of a swift passage
through the air. We are all bound, of course, by
our limitations to do that ; but I had not realized
the inadequacy of such images. I conceived
of Eternity and spiritual existence in terms of
time and space, and I had not really even as
much faith as that of the agnostic who recognizes
that these are inadequate, and therefore foolishly
believes that the reality is unknowable though
in one sense indeed it is."
Once more the German priest murmured ;
and I saw now why this man had been encouraged
to tell his story.
" Well then," he continued, " when the world
retired from me with the approach of death, my
religion retired naturally with it. (That seems
to me so obvious now !) and I was left, moving
swiftly inwards, if I may express it so, towards a
state of which I was completely ignorant. I was
dying, as I suppose animals die. I never lost self-
consciousness for a moment. As a rule, of course,
one realizes self-consciousness, as philosophers
200 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
tell us, by self-differentiation from what
is not self. The baby learns it gradually by
touching and looking. The dying lose it by
ceasing to touch and see or, rather, they lose
that mode of realizing it, and enter into them-
selves instead. It is a transcendent kind of
self-consciousness different altogether.
" I had then a vague kind of anxiety, but I
was perfectly peaceful. I had no particular
remembrance of sins, no faith or love or hope
nothing but a sense of extreme naturalness, if
I may express it so. It seemed as if I had
known all this all along as a stone thrown into
the air would, if it had consciousness, realize the
inevitability of its curve as it neared the earth.
I was to die well, that was the corollary of
having lived !
" Well, this inevitable movement inwards went
on, as it seemed to me, very swiftly. Each instant
that I applied my consciousness it seemed to me
as if I had gone a great way since the previous
instant ; the only thing that astonished me was
the distance there was to travel. It was a sensa-
tion how shall I express it ? a sensation of
sinking swiftly into an inner depth of which I
had not guessed the extent. I wondered, in a
complacent, half curious kind of way, as to what
MR. BOSANQUET'S TALE 201
exactly would be the end how things would be
visualized when I passed finally from the body
and, such things as I pictured, I pictured of
course in terms of time and space. I I thought
my essential self, whatever that was, would
at a certain moment pass a certain line, and
emerge on the other side ; and there things would
be rather as they had been on earth, thinner . . .
spiritual I should see faces, perhaps, forms,
places, all in a kind of delicate light. What
really happened was a complete surprise."
Mr. Bosanquet paused, and in a meditative
kind of way winked several times at the fire.
He showed no emotion. He seemed to me merely
to be recalling the best phrases to use.
" Well," he said, " I have told this story before,
and each time before telling it I have thought
that I had got the point and could really describe
what happened, and each time I have been dis-
appointed. ... Of course it must be so. There
are simply no words or illustrations. I must do
the best I can.
14 Well ; this process went on, and after a while
I perceived plainly that my senses were fading.
I believe I opened my eyes ; so I was told after-
wards opened them wide ; but at any rate I
202 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
saw nothing this time except blurred lines and
colours, rather like the reverse side of a carpet.
They were rather bewildering ; but they soon
went, leaving nothing but a streaked greyness
that darkened rapidly.
" I could no longer move my hands or in fact
recall to myself by feeling, any material thing at
all. I seemed to have lost relations with my
body. Neither could I move my lips or tongue
taste had gone I don't think I had ever
understood before how taste depends on the will
and on the movement of the tongue much more
so than any of the other senses which are more
or less passive.
"And then quite suddenly I perceived that
hearing had ceased also. There had been no
drumming in my ears, as I had half expected ; I
think there had been at some time previously a
clear singing of one high note which had rather
bothered me ; and I suppose that it was then
that hearing had gone, but I did not notice it
till I thought about it.
" And then there was one more thing more
strange than all I began to perceive
that my will was not myself.
" Most of us are accustomed to think that it is.
It is so closely united with that which is the very
MR. BOSANQUET'S TALE 203
self that we usually identify them. Sometimes we
are even more foolish, and identify our emotion
with ourselves ; and think that our moods
are our character. The fact is, of course, that
the intellect is the most superficial of our faculties ;
there are simply scores of things that we cannot
understand in the least, but of which for all that
we are as certain as of our own existence. Next
to that comes the emotion ; it is certainly nearer
to us than intellect, though not much, and
thirdly comes the will.
" Now the will is quite close to us ; it is that
through which we consciously act, after having
heard the reasons for or against action suggested
by the other faculties. But the will is, after all,
a faculty of itself not self itself.
" I began to see this from the way it was labour-
ing, like an exhausted engine ; it still throbbed
and moved ; it turned this way and that, direct-
ing the all but dead faculties outside to move in
this or that direction to think and to perceive.
But I began to see clearly now that the real self
was something altogether apart existing simply
in another mode. There that is the point in
another mode.
" Now, in this matter I feel hopeless. I simply
cannot express what I knew, and know, to be the
204 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
central fact of our existence. I can say no more
than that Self, that which lies far behind every-
thing else, exists in as different a mode from all
else, as as the inner meaning of a phrase of
music is apart from the existence of a dog walking
up the street. There is simply no common term
which can be applied to them both.
" Well, I perceived my will to be labouring,
very slowly and clumsily ; and I perceived that
it would not be able to move much longer. (You
must understand that this ' perceiving', as I call
it, was not the act of my intellect ; it was simply
a deep intuitive knowledge dwelling in that which
I call Self.)
" Then I suddenly became aware that it was
important for my will to fall in the right direc-
tion : I understand that this would make well
the whole difference to me. ... I knew that
this would be my last conscious act.
" You ask me how I knew what was the right
direction. Well I must go slowly here."
He paused for a moment, then he went on very
slowly, picking his words.
" I began, I think I may say, to be clearly and
vividly conscious of two centres ; there was Self,
and there was Another. This Other was at
present completely hidden from me. I was only
MR. BOSANQUET'S TALE 205
aware of it as one may be aware of the presence
of a huge personality behind an impenetrable
curtain. But I perceived that this Other was
the only important thing.
" Well . . . my will was reeling ; there was
no discomfort, no fear, or pain, or anxiety, and I
whatever that is watched it, as a man may
watch a top in its last swift twist ings on its side.
I had still some control over it ; I knew that it
was my will, it still was linked to me in a way. . . .
Then I put out my energy (remember, there was
no conscious perception of anything nothing
but a perfectly unreflective instinct) and tried to
wrench that rolling thing round to a position
of rest ah ! how shall I put it a position of
rest pointing towards this other centre.
" And, as I made that effort 1 lost touch with
it I have no idea whether I succeeded and at
the same instant, if I may call it so, something
happened."
Mr. Bosanquet leaned back and sighed.
" Every word is wrong," he said, " you
understand that, do you not ? "
I nodded two or three times. I kept my eyes on
his face. He glanced round at the other two.
Then he went on, shifting his attitude a little :
206 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Well, this something ... I suppose I could
give half-a-dozen illustrations, but none of them
would be adequate. Let me give you two or
three.
" When a man falls in love suddenly, his whole
centre changes. Up to that point he has, prob-
ably, referred everything to himself considered
things from his own point. When he falls in love
the whole thing is shifted ; he becomes a part of
the circumference perhaps even the whole
circumference ; some one else becomes the
centre. For example, things he hears and sees are
referred in future instantly to this other person ;
he ceases to be acquisitive, his entire life, if it is
really love, is pulled sideways ; he does not desire
to get, but to give. That is why it is the noblest
thing in the world.
" Secondly, imagine that you had lived all
your life in a certain house, and had got to know
every detail of it perfectly ; you had walked about
in the garden, too, and looked through the
railings, and thought you knew pretty fairly what
the country was like. Then, one morning, after
you had got up and dressed, you went to your
bedroom door, opened it and went out ; and that
very instant found yourself not in the passage,
but on the top of a high mountain with a strange
MR. BOSANQUET'S TALE 207
country visible for miles all round, and no house
or human being near you.
" Thirdly (and this perhaps is the best illustra-
tion after all) imagine that you were looking at a
picture, and had become absorbed in it ; and then,
without any warning at all the picture suddenly
became a chord of music which you heard, and
which you recognized to be identical with the
picture not merely analogous to it but the
actual picture translated, transubstantiated and
trans-accidentated into sound.
" Now, those are the three illustrations I
generally use in telling this story ; there are
others, but I think these are the best.
" Well, it was like that ; but you must please
to remember that these are only like charcoal
sketches of something which is colour rather
than shape. But, briefly, these are the nearest
similitudes I can think of.
" First, although I remained the same, I became
aware that I simply was not the centre of what I
experienced* It was not I who primarily existed
at all. There was Something I call it Something,
because the word Person simply bears no resem-
blance to the Personality of this other existence,
at least, no more than a resemblance ; because
this other Personality was as different from, and
208 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
as far above, our own as the personality of a
philosopher is different from the corresponding
thing in a pebble. I became aware (at least this
was what I told myself afterwards), I became aware
of real Existence for the first time in my experi-
ence. I myself then, became merely a speck in a
circumference. Yet and this is why I spoke of
love I also became aware that while I had not
lost my individuality, yet this other Being was the
only thing that mattered at all, and, further
well, I may as well say it outright, that in the
very depth of this Existence was Human Nature
yes, Human Nature. I knew it instantly. I
never before had had the faintest idea of what
the Incarnation really meant.
" Secondly, the whole of everything was
different as startlingly different as the change
of my second illustration. I had expected to find
a kind of continuation. There was, in one sense,
no continuation at all nothing in the least
like what experience had led me to expect. It
was completely abrupt.
" Thirdly ; in another sense, what I found was
not only the consequence of what had preceded
it was not simply the result ; but it was identical
with what had preceded. It was the picture
becoming sound the essence of my previous life
MR. BOSANQUET'S TALE 209
was here in other terms. It simply was. The
whole thing was complete. You may call this
Judgment ; well, that will do ; but it was a
Judgment in which there was no question of
concurrence or protest. It was inevitably true.
" Let me take even one more illustration.
" Once I went with my brother into a glass-
house in autumn. He smelt a certain flower, and
then, rather excitedly, asked me to smell it. I
shut my eyes and smelt it. Practically instantly
the whole thing became sound and sight. I saw
the terrace at home in summer, and heard the bees.
I looked up.
" ' Well ? he said.
" ' The terrace in summer,' I said.
" ' Exactly/
" Well ; it was like that. There was no
question about it.
" Now, I have taken some time to tell this ;
but I must make it clear that there was absolutely
no time in the experience, no sense of progression.
It was not merely that I was absorbed, but that
time had no existence. This is how I know it.
" Simultaneously with all this I heard one noise ;
and immediately time began I began to consider.
Presently I heard another noise, then another, like
a great drum being beaten. Then the noises went ;
210 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
and there was absolute silence, of which I was
aware, and others came in, a rustling, a footstep,
the sound of words. I was entirely absorbed in
these. I heard the sound of water, a door
opening, the ticking of a clock. I was conscious
of no consideration about these things, and no
sensation of any kind ; it was as if my brain had
become one ear which heard. This went on
well, I may say it was ten seconds or ten years.
Time meant nothing to me. I only know even
now that it existed because one thing followed
another. I did not reflect at all.
" At last, after this had gone on, it was as if a
new note had struck. Another sense began to
move the sense of sight. I first became aware
of darkness, then came a glimmer, with a sensa-
tion of flickering. Then touch. I became aware
of a constraint somewhere in the universe ; it was
a long time before I knew that I myself was feeling
it. I did not perceive sensation : I was it.
" Well these waxed and waxed ; then my will
stirred ; and I became aware that I could choose,
that I could acquiesce or resent then emotion ;
and I found myself disliking certain sensations.
Then I began to wonder and question again, and
ask myself why and what "
Mr Bosanquet broke off abruptly.
MR. BOSANQUET'S TALE 211
" Well, I needn't go on. To put it in a word I
was coming back to ordinary life. Half an hour
after the doctor had said that I was dead, and
about three minutes after the nurse had finished
with me, just as she was looking at me, in fact,
before going out of the room, I made a sound
with my lips. The rest happened as you would
expect : there was nothing interesting in
that.
" But this is the point I want to make clear.
Those noises I heard like a drum, followed by the
silence, were, without doubt, the sounds my own
body made in dying.
" It was at that point that I died ; and the next
sounds that I began to hear were the noise the
nurse made in washing me and laying me out.
There is no question about that. I asked about
all the details, minutely.
" But the thing that seemed to me so strange at
first was the fact that I had died ' before ' that, as
we say. That complete change of the mode of
existence undoubtedly marked death ; and the
particular instant of death must have been that
at which I became aware of the change, and of the
severance of my will from myself.
" But I understood it presently. The
explanation, I think, must be this :
212 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" There is always a certain space of time
between an incident happening and our perception
of it infinitesimally small if we are observing it ;
but yet it is there. Well, when I made that final
effort of will, I died ; but dying had begun before
that. I had only regarded dying from the purely
internal side ; it took, in my soul, the form of
severance from my will. At that same instant,
since we must speak in terms of time, I was in the
spiritual mode of existence, where there is simply
no time, but which includes all time and all one's
previous experience, and in practically the same
' instant ' I was back again, and experiencing the
physical phenomena of dying. The drum-note was
either my throat or heart, I suppose the silence
that followed was the body's perception of death,
worked out in terms of time.
"We may say then this, impossible as it
sounds, that death had taken place at a given
moment in time that that inner real self,
behind the will, which I have spoken of,
simultaneously experienced severance from the
body, and was, immediately in our own mode
of existence, which, although reckoned as time
was an instant, was in fact simply eternity with
its inevitable consequences. But, after eternity
had been experienced, since I suppose again I
MR. BOSANQUET'S TALE 213
must say, ' after ' it ceased to be experienced ;
and all this was enacted in time. Then "
Mr. Bosanquet sat up, smiling suddenly.
" It is useless I am boring you."
I roused myself to answer with an energy I had
not expected.
" No please "
" Well, in one sentence. . . . Then I died."
He leaned back with an air of finality.
"But but one question," I protested. " You
spoke of Judgment. Was the result happiness or
unhappiness ? "
He shook his head, smiling.
X
Father Maddox's Tale
X
Father Maddox's Tale
is a most disappointing story/*
began old Father Maddox, with a
deprecating smile. " You will find it
as annoying as the ' Lady and the Tiger ' ;
there is no answer. Or rather there are two,
and you may take your choice, and no one can
contradict you or satisfy you that you are right."
There was a moment's pause as the priest
elaborately placed a pinch of brown powder on
his thumb-nail and inhaled it noisily through
first one nostril and then the other, with an
indescribable grimace. He flicked the specks
away, wiped his nose with a magenta cotton hand-
kerchief, replaced his snuff-box, folded his hands,
cocked one knee over the other, and proceeded.
Father Maddox had looked so profound just now
that Canon Maxwell had turned and challenged
him ; and here was the result. As he talked I
watched his large, flat foot, creased across the
toes, as if an extra two inches had been added
217
218 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
subsequently. Its size and shape seemed the
very embodiment of common sense.
" About fourteen or fifteen years ago," he
began, " I was at a mission in the Fens quite
a little place you would not know its name
about ten miles from Ely. I was very much
pleased to hear one day that an old friend of mine
had taken a house about seven miles away at a
place called Baddenham because, you know, the
life of a priest at such a mission is apt to be very
lonely, and I looked forward to his company now
and again. The neighbouring Protestant clergy
would have nothing to say to me."
The old man smiled at the company in his
deprecating manner and went on :
" About a week later my friend, Mr. Hudson
a bachelor, by the way, and a Fellow of one
of the Cambridge colleges, and a great recluse
my friend wrote and asked me to spend a Monday
to Wednesday with him. There was a novelist
coming to stay with him I think I had better
not mention his name ; we will call him Mr.
Baxter and this er Mr. Baxter wished to
meet a Catholic priest for a particular reason
that you shall hear presently. I was very much
pleased at this, for I had often heard the writer's
name, as all of you have, Reverend Fathers "
FATHER MADDOX'S TALE 219
he smiled slily " and I liked his books. He was
always very kind to us poor Papists, though I
believe he was a man of no religion himself.
" Well, I gave out that there would be no Mass
on Tuesday or Wednesday and I said, too,
where I was going, in case there was a sick-call,
though that was not likely ; and on the Monday
afternoon I walked up with my bag from
Baddenham station to the Hall.
" It was a very fine old house, very old built,
I suppose, about the beginning of the sixteenth
century and it stood in the middle of a little
park of about a hundred acres. It was L-shaped,
of red brick, with a little turret at the north end,
and had a little walled garden on the south.
" Mr. Baxter was not come yet ; he would be
there for dinner, my friend told me ; and, sure
enough, about half-past seven he came.
" He was a little man not at all what I
expected with black hair a little grey at the
temples, clean-shaven, with spectacles. He was a
very quick man I could see that. He talked
a great deal at dinner ; and it seemed, from
what my friend said, that he was come down
there from town to make a beginning at his
new book, which was to be on the days of
Elizabeth."
220 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
Father Maddox stopped, and looked round
smiling.
" No, gentlemen, you cannot guess from that.
The book was never written, as you shall hear."
There was a murmur of disappointment, and
Father Brent, who had sat forward suddenly,
sank back again, smiling too.
" Well, it seemed that Mr. Baxter wished to
meet a priest, because he was anxious to hear a
little of how Catholics managed in those days,
what it was that priests carried with them on
their travels, and so forth ; but it appeared
presently that Catholics were not to be the
principal characters of the story, though he
thought of bringing them in.
' I must have a priest, Father Maddox,' he
said. ' There might be some good side-scenes
made out of that. Please tell me everything you
can.'
" Well, I told him all I could, and about the
missal and altar-stone at Oscott, and so on ; and
I told him, too, the kind of work that priests had
to do, and their dangers, and the martyrdoms.
' Did many give in ? ' he asked.
" ' Apostatize ? ' I said. ' Oh, a few very
few.'
" He seemed very thoughtful at that, and after
FATHER MADDOX'S TALE 221
we had smoked a little he asked if we might go
round the house. He liked to know what sort
of a place he was sleeping in, he said. He seemed
to get very much excited with the house : it was
certainly an interesting old place, with several
panelled rooms, uneven floors, diamond-paned
windows, and all the rest. There was a curious
little place, too, in the turret : a kind of watch-
tower, it seemed, with tiny windows, or rather
spy-holes, *11 round. I never remember having
seen anything like it elsewhere ; and it was
approached by an oaken stair from the room
below. It was so small that two people could
hardly turn round in it together.
" Well, we saw everything, going with candles,
and came down again at last to the old parlour,
and there we sat till nearly midnight, Mr. Baxter
asking me all sorts of questions, many of which
I could not answer.
" When our host took up his candle to go to
bed, Mr. Baxter said he would sit up a bit, so we
left him and went upstairs.
" I am always a poor sleeper, particularly in
a new house, and I tossed about a long time.
It was winter, by the way or rather, late autumn
so I had a fire in my room, which was at the
top of the stairs, the first door on the right.
222 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
Then, when I did go to sleep at last, I dreamed
that I was still awake. I don't know whether
any one else has ever had that ; but I often do.
I remember what I dreamed, too. It was that
I was back again in the parlour with the other
two, and that I was trying to sleep in my chair,
but that Mr. Baxter would not be quiet ; he kept
walking up and down the room, waving his hands
and talking to himself, and that the other man
ah ! wait." The priest paused. " I have not
explained properly. At first, in my dream, the
third man was certainly Mr. Hudson at least,
I supposed so but after a while it seemed not
to be ; it was some one else, I did not know who,
and I could not remember his face. This third
man, apparently, was not trying to sleep ; he was
standing in the corner of the room, in the shadow,
watching Mr. Baxter as he went up and down.
Well, this went on a long while, and then at last
I awoke, wide awake, and lay much annoyed.
I was hardly fully awake before I heard Mr. Baxter
come upstairs. I heard his bedroom candle
clink as he lit it in the hall below, and then I
heard the creak of one of his shoes, which I had
noticed before. He came upstairs, past my door,
walking rather quickly as his way was ; and I
heard him shut the door of his room, which was
FATHER MADDOX'S TALE 223
at the further end of the landing. Then I went
to sleep."
Father Maddox paused, took another pinch of
snuff, looking round on us.
" Is that all dear, so far ? " he asked.
There was a murmur of assent, and he went on :
" Well, Mr. Baxter was very late at breakfast.
He did not come down till we had finished, and
I thought he looked very tired. He was plainly
rather excited, too, and as he helped himself at
the sideboard he turned round.
' My dear Hudson,' he said, ' what a house
this is of yours ! It has really inspired me. I
sat up till nearly three, and I believe I have got
a first-rate idea.'
" Of course we asked what it was, and as he
ate his porridge he told us.
" He was going to bring in an apostate priest
a man, sincere enough in his faith, who gave way
under torture. He was to be the son of a family
who remained good Catholics, and he was to
come home again to the very place where he
had been caught, and where his mother was still
living. It would be a good situation, thought Mr.
Baxter the apostate son, believing all the time,
and his mother, who of coursejoved him, but who
hated the thought of what he had done and
224 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
these two should live together in the house where
they had said good-bye two months before, when
the mother thought her son was going to his
martyrdom. It seemed to me quite possible,
and I said so ; and that pleased Mr. Baxter very
much.
" ' Yes/ he said. ' And, Hudson, would you
mind if I took this house as the scene of it ? It
seems to me just made for it. That little turret-
room, you know, would be the place from which
the priest saw the constables surrounding the
house ; and the room underneath could be the
chapel. And think what he would think when
he saw them again ! Do you mind ? '
" Mr. Hudson, of course, said that he would be
highly honoured, and all the rest ; and so it was
settled.
" Presently Mr. Baxter was off again.
' It is quite extraordinary,' he said, ' how
vivid the whole thing is to me the character of
the priest, his little ways, the weakness in his face,
and all the rest ; and the mother too, a fine silent
old lady, intensely religious and intensely fond
of her son, and knowing that he had only yielded
through pain. He would limp a little, from the
rack, and not be able to manage his knife very
well/
FATHER MADDOX'S TALE 225
" I asked him presently how he worked out his
characters and how far before he began to
write.
" ' Generally/ he said, ' I leave a good deal to
the time of writing. I first get the idea, and
perhaps the general appearance of each person,
and of course the plot ; then I begin to write ;
and after about a chapter or two the people seem
to come alive and to do it all themselves, and I
only have to write it down as well as I can. I
think most writers find it happens like that. But
this time I must say it is rather different : I
don't think I have ever had anything so vivid
before. I am beginning to think that my
Catholics will have to be the principal people
after all. At any rate, I shall begin with
them."
" He talked like this a good deal at breakfast,
and seemed quite excited. It all seemed to me
very odd, and particularly so when he said that,
when he was once in the middle of the book, his
characters seemed almost more real than living
people ; it was a kind of trance, he said ; the
real world became shadowy, and the world of
imagination the real one. Since then I have
asked one or two other writers, and they have
told me the same.
226 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Well, when we met at lunch I began to
understand how true it all was. He was actually
in a kind of waking dream ; he had been writing
hard all the morning, and it seemed as if he
could pay no attention to anything. He didn't
talk much hardly a word, in fact and finally
Mr. Hudson said something about it.
" ' My dear man/ said the other, ' I really can't
attend. I am very sorry ; but it's a kind of
obsession now. I tell you that this book is the
only thing that matters to me in the least. They
are all waiting for me now in the study Mr.
Jennifer the apostate, his mother, and an old
manservant of the house. I can't possibly come
out this afternoon ; this chapter has got to get
done.'
" He really was quite pale with excitement,
and he rushed out again as soon as he had
finished.
" Well, Mr. Hudson and I went out together,
and we got back about four, just as the evening
was beginning to close in. We had tea alone ;
Mr. Baxter had ordered it for himself, it seemed,
when our host went in to see if he was coming.
" ' He is working like a madman,' he said, when
he came back. ' I have just given him the keys
of the turret ; he says he is going up there before
FATHER MADDOX'S TALE 227
it is quite dark to see how far away the priest
could have seen the constables round the house.'
" After tea I went upstairs to put on my
cassock and change my shoes, and as I went into
my room I heard the study door open and Mr.
Baxter come out. I watched him, from inside,
go past, and heard him cross the landing to get
to the turret-room and the stairs.
" Now I must explain."
Father Maddox paused ; then he leaned
forward, drew up the little table by his side,
and began to arrange books in the shape of an L.
" This is the first floor, you understand. This
small book stands for the horizontal of the L.
My room was here, in the angle, at the top of
Mie stairs. Mr. Baxter's room was on the right,
past mine, at the end of the horizontal. Just
opposite his room was the one which he said was
to be the chapel, and out of this room rose the
turret-stairs. This part of the house is only two
stories high, but the turret itself is high enough
to see over the roofs of the upright part of the L,
as those rooms, although there are three stories
of them, are much lower than these others.
" Very well, then. ... I heard Mr. Baxter
go across and go into the chapel-room. Then I
heard his* footsteps stop ; he was looking, he
228 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
told us afterwards, at the place where the altar
would have stood, and so on.
" When I had changed my things I thought I
would go out and see how he was getting on.
It was very nearly dark by now, so I took one
of my candles and went across. The door of
the chapel-room was open and I went in/'
Father Maddox paused once more. I could
see that a climax was coming, and I must
confess that I felt oddly excited. He seemed
such a common-sense man, too.
" Now, those of you who have ever shot over
dogs know what happens when a dog points ;
how he stiffens all over and is all strung up tight.
Well, that is what Mr. Baxter was doing. He
was standing, rather crouching, with his hands
out on either side, palms down, staring sideways
up the little staircase that led to the turret.
This staircase, I must tell you, ran diagonally up
across the further end of the room, like a loft
staircase. There were no open bannisters ; it was
masked by panelling, and was generally closed
by a door in the panelling ; but this was open
now, and, as I said, he had twisted his head
sideways so that his eyes looked up it up
to the right.
" Well, at first I thought he was calculating
FATHER MADDOX'S TALE 229
something, but he did not move as I came in ;
he was like a statue. I said something, but he
paid no attention. I went right up to him.
" ' Mr. Baxter,' I said, ' I have come to see '
" Then a sort of horrid moan came from him,
and he suddenly jumped back and seized me by
the arm so that the candle dropped and we were
almost in the dark ; but I caught a sight of his
face.
' He is coming down, he is coming down,
Father,' he whispered. ' Oh ! for God's sake ! '
Then he gave a great wrench at my arm, still
moaning ; and somehow we were out of the room,
across the landing, and half tumbling downstairs
together. Mr. Hudson ran out at the noise, and
somehow we got him into the study and in a
deep chair, and he went off into a swoon."
The old man paused, and looked round with
rather a tremulous smile ; and, I must confess,
the silence in the room was very much
marked.
" Well, half-an-hour later Mr. Baxter seemed
himself again. He was able to tell us what had
happened. It seemed that he had gone into the
room, and, as I had thought, had stopped a
moment or two there, trying to imagine the old
arrangements that he had invented invented,
230 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
Reverend Fathers ; remember that : there was
no tradition about the house at all. Neither
then nor afterwards. Then he had gone to the
staircase to go up to the turret.
" Now, this is what he said he saw he told us
all this gradually, of course. He saw a man in
a cassock and cap standing on the top step of
the little stairs, looking out through the tiny
window that is in the wall opposite. At first he
thought it was I. It was very dark ; there was
only a little dim light from the turret-room
behind the figure, and his face, as I said, was
pressed against the darkening window, exactly as
if he were watching for somebody. He had called
out, and the figure had turned, and he had seen
it to be a young man, under thirty, with very
large dark eyes, thin lips, and a little round chin.
He had seen that absolutely plainly in the light
from the window. He also saw, as he looked,
that the face was exactly that of the priest whom
he had imagined in his story, and who, as he had
told us at lunch, was completely vivid to his
brain. Well, he had simply stared and stared.
He said that fear was not the word at all : it was
a kind of paralysis. He could not move or take
his eyes away ; and what was odd too was that
this other man seemed paralysed too. He said
FATHER MADDOX'S TALE 231
that the lips moved, and that the eyes were wide
and dilated, but that he said nothing. Mr.
Baxter had heard me come in, and at the sound
the figure at the top of the stairs had winced and
clasped its hands, and that then, with some sort
of hopeless gesture, it had begun to come down.
Then I had spoken, and Mr. Baxter had turned
and seized my arm.
" Well, there was no doing anything with Mr.
Baxter. He lay still, starting at every sound,
telling us this little by little. Then he asked
that his things might be packed. He must go
away at once, he said.
" We told him what nonsense it all was, and
how he had been worked up ; and Mr. Hudson
talked about the artistic temperament and all
the rest. But it was no good ; he must go ; and
Mr. Hudson rang the bell to give the order. As
Mr. Baxter stood up at last, still all white and
trembling, he saw his manuscript on the table,
and before I could say a word he had seized it
and tossed it into the fire : there would be thirty
or forty pages, I should think.
" We went to the door to see him off he had
entirely refused to go upstairs again ; even his
boots were brought down and he hardly said
anything more after he had told us his story ;
232 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
*
he said he would write in a day or two. Then
we went back to the parlour and talked it
all over.
" Of course we said what we thought. It
seemed to us plain enough that he had worked
himself up to a most frightful pitch of nerves,
and well, all the rest of it. The whole thing,
we said, was sheer imagination ; you see, it was
not that there was any story about the house.
" Just as Mr. Hudson was going to dress, the
butler came in."
Father Maddox stopped again.
" Now, Reverend Fathers, this is the point
of the story, and you may draw your own
conclusions. The butler came in, looking rather
puzzled, and asked how many there would be
for dinner. Mr. Hudson told him two : Mr.
Baxter was not coming back.
' I beg your pardon, sir/ said the man ; ' but
what of the other gentleman ? '
' Why, here he is/ said my friend. ' One
and one makes two, Manthorpe/
' But the gentleman upstairs, sir, and his
servant ? '
'You may imagine we jumped rather at that ;
and he told us then.
" One of the maids going across the landing
FATHER MADDOX'S TALE 233
ten minutes before had seen two persons one of
them a young gentleman, she said, in a long
cloak, and the other an old man, his servant, she
thought, for he was carrying a great bag come
out of Mr. Baxter's room and go into the turret-
room. The young gentleman was limping, she
said. ' She had particularly noticed that.' '
Father Maddox stopped, and there was a
sudden chorus of questions.
" No," he said, " there was no explanation at
all. The maid had not been at all frightened ;
she had supposed it was another visitor come by
the same train as that by which Mr. Baxter had
come the night before. She had not followed
them ; she had just gone and told Manthorpe, and
asked where the gentleman was to sleep. We
went everywhere into the turret-room, up the
stairs everywhere. There was nothing ; there
never was anything ; none at all.
" Now you see the difficulty, Reverend Fathers,"
ended the old man, smiling again. " The ques-
tion is, did Mr. Baxter's imagination in a kind of
way create those things so strongly that not only
he saw them, but the maid as well a kind of
violent thought transference ? Or was it that
there was truth in the story that something of
the sort had happened in the house, and that this
16 (x)
234 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
was the reason why, firstly, the idea had come
so vividly to Mr. Baxter's mind, and secondly
that he and the maid had actually seen well,
what they did see ? "
He took out his snuff-box.
XI
Father Macclesfield's Tale
XI
Father Macclesfield's Tale
MONSIGNOR MAXWELL announced next
day at dinner that he had already
arranged for the evening's entertain-
ment. A priest, whose acquaintance he had made
on the Palatine, was leaving for England the
next morning ; and it was our only chance there-
fore of hearing his story. That he had a story
had come to the Canon's knowledge in the course
of a conversation on the previous afternoon.
" He told me the outline of it," he said, " I
think it very remarkable. But I had a great
deal of difficulty in persuading him to repeat it
to the company this evening. But he promised
at last. I trust, gentlemen, you do not think
I have presumed in begging him to do so."
Father Macclesfield arrived at supper.
He was a little unimposing dry man, with a
hooked nose, and grey hair. He was rather silent
at supper ; but there was no trace of shyness in
his manner as he took his seat upstairs, and
287
238 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
without glancing round once, began in an even
and dispassionate voice :
" I once knew a Catholic girl that married an
old Protestant three times her own age. I
entreated her not to do so ; but it was useless.
And when the disillusionment came she used to
write to me piteous letters, telling me that her
husband had in reality no religion at all. He was
a convinced infidel ; and scouted even the idea
of the soul's immortality.
" After two years of married life the old man
died. He was about sixty years old ; but very hale
and hearty till the end.
" Well, when he took to his bed, the wife sent
for me ; and I had half-a-dozen interviews with
him ; but it was useless. He told me plainly
that he wanted to believe in fact he said that
the thought of annihilation was intolerable to
him. If he had had a child he would not have
hated death so much ; if his flesh and blood in
any manner survived him, he could have fancied
that he had a sort of vicarious life left ; but as
it was there was no kith or kin of his alive ; and
he could not bear that."
Father Macclesfield sniffed cynically, and folded
his hands.
" I may say that his death-bed was extremely
FATHER MACCLESFIELD'S TALE 239
unpleasant. He was a coarse old fellow, with
plenty of strength in him ; and he used to make
remarks about the churchyard and and in
fact the worms, that used to send his poor child
of a wife half fainting out of the room. He had
lived an immoral life too, I gathered.
" Just at the last it was well disgusting.
He had no consideration (God knows why she
married him !). The agony was a very long one ;
he caught at the curtains round the bed ; calling
out ; and all his words were about death, and the
dark. It seemed to me that he caught hold of
the curtains as if to hold himself into this world.
And at the very end he raised himself clean up
in bed, and stared horribly out of the window
that was open just opposite.
" I must tell you that straight away beneath
the window lay a long walk, between sheets of
dead leaves with laurels on either side, and the
branches meeting overhead, so that it was very
dark there even in summer ; and at the end of the
walk away from the house was the churchyard
gate."
Father Macclesfield paused and blew his nose.
Then he went on still without looking at us.
" Well the old man died ; and he was carried
along this laurel path, and buried.
240 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" His wife was in such a state that I simply
dared not go away. She was frightened to death ;
and, indeed, the whole affair of her husband's
dying was horrible. But she would not leave the
house. She had a fancy that it would be cruel to
him. She used to go down twice a day to pray
at the grave ; but she never went along the
laurel walk. She would go round by the garden
and in at a lower gate, and come back the same
way, or by the upper garden.
" This went on for three or four days. The
man had died on a Saturday, and was buried on
Monday ; it was in July ; and he had died
about eight o'clock.
" I made up my mind to go on the Saturday
after the funeral. My curate had managed along
very well for a few days ; but I did not like to
leave him for a second Sunday.
" Then on the Friday at lunch her sister had
come down, by the way, and was still in the house
on the Friday the widow said something about
never daring to sleep in the room where the old
man had died. I told her it was nonsense, and
so on ; but you must remember she was in a
dreadful state of nerves, and she persisted. So
I said I would sleep in the room myself. I had
no patience with such ideas then.
FATHER MACCLESFIELD'S TALE 241
" Of course she said all sorts of things, but I
had my way ; and my things were moved in on
Friday evening.
" I went to my new room about a quarter
before eight to put on my cassock for dinner. The
room was very much as it had been rather dark
because of the trees at the end of the walk outside.
There was the four-poster there with the damask
curtains ; the table and chairs, the cupboard
where his clothes were kept, and so on.
* When I had put my cassock on, I went to
the window to look out. To right and left were
the gardens, with the sunlight just off them, but
still very bright and gay, with the geraniums,
and exactly opposite was the laurel walk, like
a long green shady tunnel, dividing the upper
and lower lawns.
" I could see straight down it to the church-
yard gate, which was about a hundred yards
away, I suppose. There were limes overhead,
and laurels, as I said, on each side.
" Well I saw some one coming up the walk ;
but it seemed to me at first that he was drunk.
He staggered several times as I watched ; I
suppose he would be fifty yards away and once
I saw him catch hold of one of the trees and cling
against it as if he were afraid of falling. Then
242 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
he left it, and came on again slowly, going from
side to side, with his hands out. He seemed
desperately keen to get to the house.
" I could see his dress ; and it astonished me
that a man dressed so should be drunk ; for he
was quite plainly a gentleman. He wore a white
top hat, and a grey cut-away coat, and grey
trousers, and I could make out his white spats.
" Then it struck me he might be ill ; and I
looked harder than ever, wondering whether I
ought to go down.
" When he was about twenty yards away he
lifted his face ; and, it struck me as very odd,
but it seemed to me he was extraordinarily like
the old man we had buried on Monday ; but it
was darkish where he was, and the next moment
he dropped his face, threw up his hands and fell
flat on his back.
" Well of course I was startled at that, and I
leaned out of the window and called out some-
thing. He was moving his hands' I could see, as
if he were in convulsions ; and I could hear the
dry leaves rustling.
" Well, then I turned and ran out and
downstairs."
Father Macclesfield stopped a moment.
" Gentlemen," he said abruptly, " when I got
FATHER MACCLESFIELD'S TALE 243
there, there was not a sign of the old man. I
could see that the leaves had been disturbed, but
that was all."
There was an odd silence in the room as he
paused ; but before any of us had time to speak
he went on.
" Of course I did not say a word of what I had
seen. We dined as usual ; I smoked for an hour
or so by myself after prayers ; and then I
went up to bed. I cannot say I was perfectly
comfortable, for I was not ; but neither was I
frightened.
" When I got to my room I lit all my candles,
and then went to a big cupboard I had noticed,
and pulled out some of the drawers. In the
bottom of the third drawer I found a grey cut-
away coat and grey trousers ; I found several
pairs of white spats in the top drawer ; and a
white hat on the shelf above. That is the first
incident."
" Did you sleep there, Father ? " said a voice
softly.
" I did," said the priest ; " there was no reason
why I should not. I did not fall asleep for two
or three hours ; but I was not disturbed in any
way ; and came to breakfast as usual.
" Well, I thought about it all a bit ; and finally
244 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
I sent a wire to my curate telling him I was
detained. I did not like to leave the house
just then."
Father Macclesfield settled himself again in his
chair and went on, in the same dry uninterested
voice.
" On Sunday we drove over to the Catholic
Church, six miles off, and I said Mass. Nothing
more happened till the Monday evening.
" That evening I went to the window again
about a quarter before eight, as I had done both
on the Saturday and Sunday. Everything was
perfectly quiet, till I heard the churchyard gate
unlatch ; and I saw a man come through.
" But I saw almost at once that it was not the
same man I had seen before ; it looked to me like
a keeper, for he had a gun across his arm ; then
I saw him hold the gate open an instant, and a
dog came through and began to trot up the path
towards the house with his master following.
" When the dog was about fifty yards away he
stopped dead, and pointed.
" I saw the keeper throw his gun forward and
come up softly ; and as he came the dog began
to slink backwards. I watched very closely,
clean forgetting why I was there ; and the next
instant something it was too shadowy under the
FATHER MACCLESFIELD'S TALE 245
trees to see exactly what it was but something
about the size of a hare burst out of the laurels
and made straight up the path, dodging from side
to side, but coming like the wind.
" The beast could not have been more than
twenty yards from me, when the keeper fired,
and the creature went over and over in the dry
leaves, and lay struggling and screaming. It
was horrible ! But what astonished me was that
the dog did not come up. I heard the keeper
snap out something, and then I saw the dog
making off down the avenue in the direction
of the churchyard as hard as he could go.
" The keeper was running now towards me ;
but the screaming of the hare, or of whatever it
was, had stopped ; and I was astonished to see
the man come right up to where the beast was
struggling and kicking, and then stop as if he was
puzzled.
" I leaned out of the window and called to him.
' Right in front of you, man/ I said. ' For
God's sake kill the brute/
" He looked up at me, and then down again.
" ' Where is it, sir/ he said. ' I can't see it
anywhere/
" And there lay the beast clear before him all
the while, not a yard away, still kicking.
246 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Well, I went out of the room and downstairs
and out to the avenue.
" The man was standing there still, looking
terribly puzzled, but the hare was gone. There
was not a sign of it. Only the leaves were
disturbed, and the wet earth showed beneath.
" The keeper said that it had been a great
hare ; he could have sworn to it ; and that he
had orders to kill all hares and rabbits in the
garden enclosure. Then he looked rather
odd.
" ' Did you see it plainly, sir/ he asked.
" I told him, not very plainly ; but I thought
it a hare too.
" ' Yes, sir/ he said, ' it was a hare, sure enough ;
but, do you know, sir, I thought it to be a kind of
silver grey with white feet. I never saw one like
that before ! '
" The odd thing was that not a dog would come
near, his own dog was gone ; but I fetched the
yard dog a retriever, out of his kennel in the
kitchen yard ; and if ever I saw a frightened
dog it was this one. When we dragged him up at
last, all whining and pulling back, he began to
snap at us so fiercely that we let go, and he went
back like the wind to his kennel. It was the same
with the terrier.
FATHER MACCLESFIELD'S TALE 247
" Well, the bell had gone, and I had to go in
and explain why I was late ; but I didn't say
anything about the colour of the hare. That was
the second incident."
Father Macclesfield stopped again, smiling
reminiscently to himself. I was very much
impressed by his quiet air and composure. I
think it helped his story a good deal.
Again, before we had time to comment or
question he went on.
' The third incident was so slight that I should
not have mentioned it, or thought anything of it,
if it had not been for the others ; but it seemed
to me there was a kind of diminishing gradation
of energy, which explained. Well, now you
shall hear.
" On the other nights of that week I was at my
window again ; but nothing happened till the
Friday. I had arranged to go for certain next
day ; the widow was much better and more
reasonable, and even talked of going abroad
herself in the following week.
" On that Friday evening I dressed a little
earlier, and went down to the avenue this time,
instead of staying at my window, at about twenty
minutes to eight.
" It was rather a heavy depressing evening,
248 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
without a breath of wind ; and it was darker than
it had been for some days.
" I walked slowly down the avenue to the gate
and back again ; and, I suppose it was fancy,
but I felt more uncomfortable than I had felt at
all up to then. I was rather relieved to see the
widow come out of the house and stand looking
down the avenue. I came out myself then and
went towards her. She started rather when she
saw me and then smiled.
' I thought it was some one else/ she said.
' Father, I have made up my mind to go. I shall
go to town to-morrow, and start on Monday. My
sister will come with me/
" I congratulated her ; and then we turned
and began to walk back to the lime avenue. She
stopped at the entrance, and seemed unwilling
to come any further.
' Come down to the end/ I said, ' and back
again. There will be time before dinner/
" She said nothing ; but came with me ; and
we went straight down to the gate and then turned
to come back.
" I don't think either of us spoke a word ; I
was very uncomfortable indeed by now ; and yet
I had to go on.
" We were half way back I suppose when I
FATHER MACCLESFIELD'S TALE *.
heard a sound like a gate rattling ; and I whisked
round in an instant, expecting to see some one at
the gate. But there was no one.
" Then there came a rustling overhead in the
leaves ; it had been dead still before. Then I
don't know why, but I took my friend suddenly
by the arm and drew her to one side out of the
path, so that we stood on the right hand, not a
foot from the laurels.
" She said nothing, and I said nothing ; but I
think we were both looking this way and that,
as if we expected to see something.
' The breeze died, and then sprang up again ;
but it was only a breath. I could hear the
living leaves rustling overhead, and the dead leaves
underfoot ; and it was blowing gently from the
churchyard.
" Then I saw a thing that one often sees ; but I
could not take my eyes off it, nor could she. It
was a little column of leaves, twisting and turning
and dropping and picking up again in the wind,
coming slowly up the path. It was a capricious
sort of draught, for the little scurry of leaves
went this way and that, to and fro across the
path. It came up to us, and I could feel the
breeze on my hands and face. One leaf struck
me softly on the cheek, and I can only say
17 (aooo)
,5250 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
that I shuddered as if it had been a toad. Then
it passed on.
" You understand, gentlemen, it was pretty
dark ; but it seemed to me that the breeze died
and the column of leaves it was no more than
a little twist of them sank down at the end of
the avenue.
" We stood there perfectly still for a moment or
two ; and when I turned, she was staring straight
at me, but neither of us said one word.
" We did not go up the avenue to the house.
We pushed our way through the laurels, and
came back by the upper garden.
" Nothing else happened ; and the next morning
we all went off by the eleven o'clock train.
" That is all, gentlemen/'
XII
Father Stein's Tale
XII
Father Stein's Tale
OLD Father Stein was a figure that greatly
fascinated me during my first weeks
in Rome, after I had got over the slight
impatience that his personality roused in me.
He was slow of speech and thought and move-
ment, and had that distressing grip of the obvious
that is characteristic of the German mind. I soon
rejoiced to look at his heavy face, generally un-
shaven, his deep twinkling eyes, and the ponderous
body that had such an air of eternal immov-
ability, and to watch his mind, as through a glass
case, labouring like an engine over a fact that he
had begun to assimilate. He took a kind of
paternal interest in me too, and would thrust
his thick hand under my arm as he stood by me, or
clap me heavily on the shoulder as we met. But
he was excellently educated, had seen much of the
world, although always through a haze of the
Fatherland that accompanied him everywhere,
and had acquired an exceptional knowledge of
III
\ V2
254 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
English during his labours in a London mission.
He used his large vocabulary with a good deal of
skill.
I was pleased then when Monsignor announced
on the following evening that Father Stein was
prepared to contribute a story. But the German,
knowing that he was master of the situation, would
utter nothing at first but hoarse ejaculations at
the thought of his reminiscences, and it was not
until we had been seated for nearly half-an-hour
before the fire that he consented to begin.
" It is of a dream," he said, " no more than that ;
and yet dreams too are under the hand of the
good God ; so I hold. Some, I know, are just
folly ; and tell us of nothing but the confusion
of our own nature when the controlling-will is
withdrawn ; but some, I hold, are the whispers
of God and tell us of what we are too dull to hear
in our waking life. You do not believe me ?
Very well ; then listen.
" I knew a man in Germany, thirty years ago,
who had lived many years away from God. He
had been a Catholic, and was well-educated in
religion till he grew to be a lad. Then he fell into
sin, and dared not confess it ; and he lied, and
made bad confessions and approached the altar
FATHER STEIN'S TALE 255
so. He once went to a strange priest to tell his
sin, and dared not when the time came ; and so
added sin to sin, and lost his faith. It is ever so.
We know it well. The soul dare not go on in
that state, believing in God ; and so by n inner
act of the will renounces Him. It is not true, it
is not true, she cries ; and at last the voice of faith
is silent, and her eyes blind."
The priest stopped and looked round him,
and the old Rector nodded once or twice and
murmured assent.
" For twenty years he had lived so ; without
God, and he was not unhappy ; for the powers of
his soul died one by one and he could no longer
feel. Once or twice they struggled, in their death
agony, and he stamped on them again. Once
when his mother died, he nearly lived again ; and
his soul cried once more within him, and stirred
herself ; but he would not hear her ; it is useless,
he said to her, there is no hope for you ; lie still ;
there is nothing for you ; you are dreaming ;
there is no life such as you think ; and he trampled
her again, and she lay still."
We were all very quiet now ; I certainly had
not suspected such passion in this old priest ;
he had seemed to me slow and dull and not capable
of any sort of delicate thought or phrase, far less of
256 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
tragedy ; but somehow now his great face was
lighted up, his eyebrows twitched as he talked ;
and it seemed as if we were hearing of a murder
that this man had seen for himself. Monsignor
sat perfectly motionless staring intently into the
fire ; and Father Brent was watching the German
sideways ; Father Stein took a deliberate pinch
of snuff, snapped his box, and put it away, and
went on.
" This man had lived on the sea-coast as a child,
but was now in business in a town on the Rhine ;
and had never visited his old home since he left
it with his mother on his father's death. He was
now about thirty-five years of age, when God was
gracious to him. He was living in a cousin's
house, with whom he was partner.
" One night he dreamed he was a child, and
walking with one whom he knew was his sister
who had died before he was born ; but he could
not see her face. They were on a white dusty
road, and it was the noon of a hot summer day.
There was nothing to be seen round him, but great
slopes of a dusty country with dry grass ; and the
burning sky overhead, and the sun. He was tired,
and his feet ached, and he was crying as he walked,
but he dared not cry loud for fear that his sister
would turn and look at him, and he knew she was
FATHER STEIN'S TALE 257
a a rtvenani and did not wish to see her eyes.
There was no wind, and no birds, and no clouds ;
only the grasshoppers sawed in the dry grass, and
the blood drummed in his ears until he thought
he would go mad with the noise. And so they
walked, the boy behind his sister, up a long hill.
It seemed to him that they had been walking so
for hours, for a lifetime ; and that there would
be no end to it. His feet sank to the ankles in
dust, the sun beat on to his brain from above, the
white road glared from below ; and the tears ran
down his cheeks.
" Then there was a breath of salt wind in his
face, and his sister began to go faster, noiselessly ;
and he tried too to go faster, but could not ; his
heart beat like a hammer in his throat, and his
feet lagged more and more ; and little by little
his sister was far in front ; and he dared not cry
out to her not to leave him, for fear she should
turn and look at him ; and at last he was walking
alone ; and he dared not lie down or rest.
" The road passed up a slope, and when he
reached the top of it at last, he saw her again, far
away, a little figure that turned to him and waved
its hand ; and behind her was the blue sea, very
faint and in a mist of heat ; and then he knew
tli it the end of the bitter journey was very near.
258 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" As he passed up the last slope the sea-line rose
higher against the sky, but the line was only as
the fine mark of a pencil where sea and sky met,
and a dazzling white bird or two passed across it,
and then dropped below the cliff. By the time
he came near his sister the dusty road had died
away into the grass, and he was walking over the
fresh turf that felt cool to his hot feet. He threw
himself down on the edge of it, by his sister, where
she was lying with her head on her hands looking
out at the sea where it spread itself out, a
thousand feet below ; and still he had not seen
her face.
" At the foot of the cliff was a little white beach,
and the rocks ran down into deep water on every
side of it, and threw a purple shadow across the
sand ; and there were birds here too, floating out
from the cliff and turning and returning ; and the
sea beneath them was a clear blue, like a Cardinal's
ring that I saw once ; and the breeze blew up
from the water and made him happy again."
Father Stein stopped again, with something
of a sob in his old heavy voice ; and then he
turned to us.
" You know such dreams," he said, " I cannot
tell it as as he told me ; but he said it was like
the bliss of the redeemed to look down on the sea
FATHER STEIN'S TALE 259
and feel the breeze in his hair, and taste its
salt ness.
" He did not wish his sister to speak, though
he was afraid of her no more ; and yet he knew
that there was some secret to be told that would
explain all why they were here, and why she
had come back to him, and why the sea was here,
and the little beach below them, and the wind
and the birds. But he was content to wait until
it was time for her to tell him, as he knew she
would. It was enough to lie here, after the dusty
journey, beside her, and to wait for the word that
should be spoken.
" Now at first he was so out of breath, and his
heart beat so in his ears, that he could hear
nothing but that and his own panting ; but it grew
quieter soon, and he began to hear something else-
the noises of the sea beneath him. It was a still
day, but there was movement down below ; and
the surge heaved itself softly against the cliff, and
murmured in deep caves below, like the pedal
note of the Frankfort organ, solemn and splendid ;
and the waves leaned over and crashed gently on
the sand. It was all so far beneath that he saw
the breaking wave before the sound came up to
him ; and he lay there and watched and listened ;
and that great sound made him happier even
260 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
than the light on the water, and the coolness and
rest ; for it was the sea itself that was speaking
now.
" Then he saw suddenly that his sister had
turned on her elbow and was looking at him ; and
he looked into her eyes, and knew her, though she
had died before he was born. And she too was
listening with her lips parted to the sound of the
surge. And now he knew that the secret was to
be told ; and he watched her eyes, smiling. And
she lifted her hand, as if to hold him silent ; and
waited ; and again the sweet murmur and crash
rose up from the sea ; and she spoke, softly.
" ' It is the Precious Blood,' she said."
Father Stein was silent ; and we all were
silent for a while. As far as I was concerned at
least the story had somehow held me with an
extraordinary fascination, I scarcely knew why.
There was a movement among the others, and
presently the Frenchman spoke.
" Et puis ? " he said.
" The man awoke," said Father Stein, " and
found tears on his face."
It was such a short story that there were still a
few minutes before the time for night-prayers, and
we sat there without speaking again until the clock
FATHER STEIN'S TALE 261
sounded in the campanile overhead, and the
Rector rose and led the way into the West gallery
of the church. I saw Father Stein waiting at the
door for me to come up ; and I knew why he was
waiting.
He took my arm in his thick hand and held
it a moment as the others passed down the two
steps. Then he pressed it, and I understood
what he meant.
\
XIII
Mr. Percival's Tale
XIII
Mr. Percival's Tale
WHEN I came in from Mass into the refec-
tory on the morning following Father
Stein's story, I found a layman break-
fasting there with the Father Rector. We were
introduced to one another ; and I learned that
Mr. Percival was a barrister who had arrived from
England that morning on a holiday and was to
stay at S. Filippo for a fortnight.
I yield to none in my respect for the clergy ;
at the same time a layman feels occasionally
something of a pariah among them : I suppose
this is bound to be so ; so I was pleased then
to find another dog of my breed with whom
I might consort, and even howl, if I so desired.
I was pleased, too, with his appearance. He had
that trim academic air that is characteristic of
the Bar, in spite of his twenty-two hours jour-
ney ; and was dressed in an excellently made
grey suit. He was very slightly bald on his fore-
head, and had those sharp-cut mask-like features
M
18 <x*x>)
266 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
that mark a man as either lawyer, priest, or actor ;
he had besides delightful manners and even, white
teeth. I do not think I could have suggested
any improvements in person, behaviour, or
costume.
By the time that my coffee had arrived, the
Father Rector had run dry of conversation and
I could see that he was relieved when I
joined in.
In a few minutes I was telling Mr. Percival
about the symposium we had formed for the
relating of preternatural adventures ; and I
presently asked him whether he had ever had
any experience of the kind.
He shook his head.
" I have not," he said in his virile voice ; " my
business takes my time."
" I wish you had been with us earlier," put
in the Rector. " I think you would have been
interested."
" I am sure of it," he said. " I remember
once but you know, Father, frankly I am
something of a sceptic."
" You remember ? " I suggested.
He smiled very pleasantly with eyes and
mouth.
" Yes, Mr. Benson ; I was once next
MR. PERCIVAL'S TALE 267
door to such a story. A friend of mine saw
something ; but I was not with him at the
moment."
"Well; we thought we had finished last
night," I said, " but do you think you would be
too tired to entertain us this evening ? "
" I shall be delighted to tell the story," he said
easily. " But indeed I am a sceptic in this
matter ; I cannot dress it up."
" We want the naked fact," I said.
I went sight-seeing with him that day ; and
found him extremely intelligent and at the same
time accurate. The two virtues do not run often
together ; and I felt confident that whatever he
chose to tell us would be salient and true. I felt,
too, that he would need few questions to draw
him out ; he would say what there was to be said
unaided.
When we had taken our places that night, he
began by again apologizing for his attitude of
mind.
" I do not know, Reverend Fathers," he said,
" what are your own theories in this matter ;
but it appears to me that if what seems to be
preternatural can possibly be brought within the
range of the natural, one is bound scientifically
to treat it in that way. Now in this story of
268 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
mine for I will give you a few words of
explanation first in order to prejudice your minds
as much as possible ; in this story the whole
matter might be accounted for by the imagina-
tion. My friend who saw what he saw was
under rather theatrical circumstances, and he is
an Irishman. Besides that, he knew the history
of the place in which he was ; and he was quite
alone. On the other hand, he has never had an
experience of the kind before or since ; he is
perfectly truthful, and he saw what he saw in
moderate daylight. I give you these facts first,
and I think you would be perfectly justified in
thinking they account for everything. As for my
own theory, which is not quite that, I have no
idea whether you will agree or disagree with it.
I do not say that my judgment is the only
sensible one, or anything offensive like that.
I merely state what I feel I am bound to accept
for the present."
There was a murmur of assent. Then he
crossed his legs, leaned back and began :
" In my first summer after I was called to the
Bar I went down South Wales for a holiday with
another man who had been with me at Oxford.
His name was Murphy : he is a J.P. now, in
MR. PERCIVAL'S TALE 289
Ireland, I think. I cannot think why we went
to South Wales ; but there it is : we did.
" We took the train to Cardiff ; sent on our
luggage up the Taff Valley to an inn of which I
cannot remember the name ; but it was close to
where Lord Bute has a vineyard. Then we
walked up to Llandaff, saw St. Tylo's tomb ;
and went on again to this village.
" Next morning we thought we would look
about us before going on ; and we went out for a
stroll. It was one of the most glorious mornings
I ever remember, quite cloudless and very hot ;
and we went up through woods to get a breeze at
the top of the hill.
" We found that the whole place was full of iron
mines, disused now, as the iron is richer further
up the country ; but I can tell you that they
enormously improved the interest of the place.
We found shaft after shaft, some protected and
some not, but mostly overgrown with bushes,
so we had to walk carefully. We had passed half-
a-dozen, I should think, before the thought of
going down one of them occurred to Murphy.
" Well, we got down one at last ; though I
rather wished for a rope once or twice ; and I
think it was one of the most extraordinary sights
I have ever seen. You know perhaps what the
270 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
cave of a demon-king is like, in the first act of a
pantomime. Well, it was like that. There was a
kind of blue light that poured down the shafts,
refracted from surface to surface ; so that the sky
was invisible. On all sides passages ran into
total darkness ; huge reddish rocks stood out
fantastically everywhere in the pale light ; there
was a sound of water falling into a pool from a
great height and presently, striking matches as
we went, we came upon a couple of lakes of mar-
vellously clear blue water through which we could
see the heads of ladders emerging from other
black holes of unknown depth below.
" We found our way out after a while into what
appeared to be the central hall of the mine. Here
we saw plain daylight again, for there was an
immense round opening at the top, from the edges
of which curved away the sides of the shaft,
forming a huge circular chamber.
" Imagine the Albert Hall roofless ; or better
still, imagine Saint Peter's with the top half of
the dome removed. Of course it was far smaller ;
but it gave an impression of great size ; and it
could not have been less than two hundred feet from
the edge, over which we saw the trees against the
sky, to the tumbled dusty rocky floor where we
stood.
MR. PERCIVAL'S TALE 271
" I can only describe it as being like a great,
burnt-out hell in the Inferno. Red dust lay
everywhere, escape seemed impossible ; and vast
crags and galleries, with the mouths of passages
showing high up, marked by iron bars and chains,
jutted out here and there.
" We amused ourselves here for some time, by
climbing up the sides, calling to one another, for
the whole place was full of echoes, rolling down
stones from some of the upper ledges : but I
nearly ended my days there.
" I was standing on a path, about seventy feet
up, leaning against the wall. It was a path along
which feet must have gone a thousand times
when the mine was in working order ; and I was
watching Murphy who was just emerging on to a
platform opposite me, on the other side of the gulf.
" I put my hand behind me to steady myself ;
and the next instant very nearly fell forward over
the edge at the violent shock to my nerves given
by a wood-pigeon who burst out of a hole, brush-
ing my hand as he passed. I gripped on, however,
and watched the bird soar out across space, and
then up and out at the opening ; and then I be-
came aware that my knees were beginning to shake.
So I stumbled along, and threw myself down
on the little platform on to which the passage led.
272 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" I suppose I had been more startled than I
knew ; for I tripped as I went forward ; and
knocked my knee rather sharply on a stone.
I felt for an instant quite sick with the pain on
the top of jangling nerves ; and lay there saying
what I am afraid I ought not to have said.
" Then Murphy came up when I called ; and
we made our way together through one of the
sloping shafts ; and came out on to the hillside
among the trees."
Mr. Percival paused ; his lips twitched a
moment with amusement.
" I am afraid I must recall my promise," he
said. " I told you all this because I was anxious
to give a reason for the feeling I had about the
mine, and which I am bound to mention. I
felt I never wanted to see the place again yet in
spite of what followed I do not necessarily
attribute my feelings to anything but the shock
and the pain that I had had. You understand
that ? "
His bright eyes ran round our faces.
" Yes, yes," said Monsignor sharply, " go on,
please, Mr. Percival."
" WeU then ! "
The lawyer uncrossed his legs and replaced them
the other way.
MR. PERCIVAL'S TALE 273
" During lunch we told the landlady where we
had been ; and she begged us not to go there
again. I told her that she might rest easy : my
knee was beginning to swell. It was a wretched
beginning to a walking tour.
'* It was not that, she said ; but there had
been a bad accident there. Four men had been
killed there twenty years before by a fall of rock.
That had been the last straw on the top of
ill-success ; and the mine had been abandoned.
" We inquired as to details : and it seemed that
the accident had taken place in the central
chamber, locally called ' The Cathedral ' ; and
after a few more questions I understood.
" 'That was where you were, my friend,' I said
to Murphy, * it was where you were when the bird
flew out.'
" He agreed with me ; and presently when the
woman was gone announced that he was going
to the mine again to see the place. Well ; I had
no business to keep him dangling about . I couldn't
walk anywhere myself : so I advised him not to
go on to that platform again ; and presently he
took a couple of candles from the sticks and went
off. He promised to be back by four o'clock ;
and I settled down rather drearily to a pipe and
some old magazines.
274 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" Naturally I fell sound asleep ; it was a hot,
drowsy afternoon and the magazines were dull.
I awoke once or twice, and then slept again deeply.
" I was awakened by the woman coming in to
ask whether I would have tea ; it was already five
o'clock. I told her Yes. I was not in the least
anxious about Murphy ; he was a good climber,
and therefore neither a coward nor a fool.
" As tea came in I looked out of the window
again, and saw him walking up to the path,
covered with iron-dust, and a moment later I
heard his step in the passage ; and he came in.
" Mrs. What's-her-name had gone out.
" ' Have you had a good time ? ' I asked.
" He looked at me very oddly ; and paused
before he answered.
" ' Oh, yes,' he said ; and put his cap and stick
in a corner.
" I knew Murphy.
" ' Well, why not ? ' I asked him, beginning to
pour out tea.
" He looked round at the door ; then he sat
down without noticing the cup I pushed across
to him.
" ' My dear fellow,' he said. ' I think I am
going mad.'
" Well ; I forget what I said : but I understood
MR. PERCIVAL'S TALE 275
that he was very much upset about something ;
and I suppose I said the proper kind of thing about
his not being a qualified fool.
"Then he told me his story."
Mr. Percival looked round at us again, still
with that slight twitching of the lips that seemed
to signify amusement.
" Please remember " he began ; and then
broke off. " No I won't "
" Well.
" He had gone down the same shaft that we
went down in the morning ; and had spent a
couple of hours exploring the passages. He had
found an engine-room with tanks and rotten
beams in it, and rusty chains. He had found
some more lakes too, full of that extraordinary
electric-blue water ; he had disturbed a quantity
of bats somewhere else. Then he had come out
again into the central hall ; and on looking at his
watch had found it after four o'clock ; so he
thought he would climb up by the way we had
come in the morning and go straight home.
" It was as he climbed that his odd sensations
began. As he went up, clinging with his hands,
he became perfectly certain that he was being
watched. He couldn't turn round very well ; but
276 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
he looked up as he went to the opening over-
head ; but there was nothing there but the dead
blue sky, and the trees very green against it>
and the red rocks curving away on every side.
It was extraordinarily quiet, he said, the pigeons
had not come home from feeding, and he was out
of hearing of the dripping water that I told you of.
" Then he reached the platform and the opening
of the path where I had had my fright in the
morning ; and turned round to look.
" At first he saw nothing peculiar. The rocks
up which he had come fell away at his feet down
to the floor of the ' Cathedral ' and to the nettles
with which he had stung his hands a minute or
two before. He looked around at the galleries
overhead and opposite; but there was nothing
there.
" Then he looked across at the platform where
he had been in the morning and where the
accident had taken place.
" Let me tell you what this was like. It was
about twenty yards in breadth, and ten deep ;
but lay irregular, and filled with tumbled rocks.
It was a little below the level of his eyes, right
across the gulf ; and, in a straight line, would be
about fifty or sixty yards away. It lay under the
roofJTather retired, so that no light from the sky
MR. PERCIVAL'S TALE 277
fell directly on to it ; it would have been in com-
plete twilight if it hadn't been for a shaft smaller
above it, which shot down a funnel of bluish
light, exactly like a stage-effect. You see, Rever-
end Fathers, it was very theatrical altogether.
That might account no doubt "
Mr. Percival broke off again, smiling.
" I am always forgetting," he said. " Well,
we must go back to Murphy. At first he saw
nothing but the rocks, and the thick red dust, and
the broken wall behind it. He was very honest,
and told me that as he looked at it, he remem-
bered distinctly what the landlady had told us at
lunch. It was on that little stage that the
tragedy had happened.
" Then he became aware that something was
moving among the rocks, and he became per-
fectly certain that people were looking at him ;
but it was too dusky to see very clearly at first.
Whatever it was, was in the shadows at the back.
He fixed his eyes on what was moving. Then
this happened."
The lawyer stopped again.
" I will tell you the rest," he said, " in his own
words, so far as I remember them.
* I was looking at this moving thing,' he said,
' which seemed exactly of the red colour of the
278 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
rocks, when it suddenly came out under the funnel
of light ; and I saw it was a man. He was in a
rough suit, all iron-stained; with a rusty cap;
and he had some kind of a pick in his hand. He
stopped first in the centre of the light, with his
back turned to me, and stood there, looking. I
cannot say that I was consciously frightened ;
I honestly do not know what I thought he was. I
think that my whole mind was taken up in
watching him.
" 'Then he turned round slowly, and I saw his
face. Then I became aware that if he looked at
me I should go into hysterics or something of the
sort ; and I crouched down as low as I could. But
he didn't look at me; he was attending to something
else ; and I could see his face quite clearly. He
had a beard and moustache, rather ragged and
rusty ; he was rather pale, but not particularly :
I judged him to be about thirty-five.' Of course,"
went on the lawyer, " Murphy didn't tell it me
quite as I am telling it to you. He stopped a good
deal, he drank a sip of tea once or twice, and
changed his feet about.
" Well ; he had seen this man's face very clearly ;
and described it very clearly.
" It was the expression that struck him most.
" * It was a rather amused expression,' he said,
MR. PERCIVAL'S TALE 279
* rather pathetic and rather tender ; and he was
looking interestedly about at everything at the
rocks above and beneath : he carried his pick
easily in the crook of his arm. He looked exactly
like a man whom I once saw visiting his home
where he had lived as a child.' (Murphy was very
particular about that, though I don't believe he
was right.) * He was smiling a little in his beard,
and his eyes were half-shut. It was so pathetic
that I nearly went into hysterics then and there,'
said Murphy. * I wanted to stand up and ex-
plain that it was all right, but I knew he knew
more than I did. I watched him, I should think
for nearly five minutes, he went to and fro softly
in the thick dust, looking here and there, some-
times in the shadow and sometimes out of it. I
could not have moved for ten thousand pounds ;
and I could not take my eyes off him.
" * Then just before the end, I did look away
from him. I wanted to know if it was all real,
and I looked at the rocks behind and the open-
ings. Then I saw that there were other people
there, at least there were things moving, of the
colour of the rocks.
4 1 suppose I made some sound then ; I was
horribly frightened. At any rate, the man in the
middle turned right round and faced me, and at
280 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
that I sank down, with the sweat dripping from
me, flat on my face, with my hands over my eyes.
" ' I thought of a hundred thousand things :
of the inn, and you ; and the walk we had had :
and I prayed well, I suppose I prayed. I wanted
God to take me right out of this place. I wanted
the rocks to open and let me through.' "
Mr. Percival stopped. His voice shook with a
tiny tremor. He cleared his throat.
" Well, Reverend Fathers ; Murphy got up at
last, and looked about him ; and of course there
was nothing there, but just the rocks and the
dust, and the sky overhead. Then he came
away home, the shortest way."
It was a very abrupt ending ; and a little sigh
ran round the circle.
Monsignor struck a match noisily, and kindled
his pipe again.
" Thank you very much, sir," he said briskly.
Mr. Percival cleared his throat again ; but
before he could speak Father Brent broke in.
" Now that is just an instance of what I was
saying, Monsignor, the night we began. May I
ask if you really believe that those were the souls
of the miners ? Where's the justice of it ?
What's the point ? "
Monsignor glanced at the lawyer.
MR. PERCIVAL'S TALE 281
" Have you any theory, sir ? " he asked.
Mr. Percival answered without lifting his eyes.
" I think so," he said shortly, " but I don't feel
in the least dogmatic."
Father Brent looked at him almost indignantly.
" I should like to hear it," he said, " if you can
square that "
" I do not square it," said the lawyer. " Per-
sonally I do not believe they were spirits at all."
" Oh ? "
" No. I do not ; though I do not wish to be
dogmatic. To my mind it seems far more likely
that this is an instance of Mr. Hudson's theory
the American, you know. His idea is that all
apparitions are no more than the result of violent
emotions experienced during life. That about
the pathetic expression is all nonsense, I believe."
" I don't understand," said Father Brent.
" Well ; these men, killed by the fall of the roof,
probably went through a violent emotion. This
would be heightened in some degree by their
loneliness and isolation from the world. This
kind of emotion, Mr. Hudson suggests, has a power
of saturating material surroundings and which,
under certain circumstances would once more, like
a phonograph, give off an image of the agent.
In this instance, too, the absence of other human
i9-<aooo)
282 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
visitors would give this materialized emotion
a chance, so to speak, of surviving : there would
be very few cross-currents to confuse it. And
finally, Murphy was alone ; his receptive faculties
would be stimulated by that fact, and all that he
saw, in my belief, was the psychical wave left by
these men in dying."
" Oh ! did you tell him so ? "
" I did not. Murphy is a violent man."
I looked up at Monsignor, and saw him nodding
emphatically to himself.
XIV
My Own Tale
XIV
My Own Tale
I MUST confess that I was a little taken
aback, on my last evening before leaving
for England, when Monsignor Maxwell
turned on me suddenly at supper, and exclaimed
aloud that I had not yet contributed a story.
I protested that I had none ; that I was a
prosaic person ; that there was some packing to
be done ; that my business was to write down
the stories of other people ; that I had my living
to make and could not be liberal with my slender
store ; that it was a layman's function to sit at
holy and learned priests' feet, not to presume to
inform them on any subject under the sun.
But it was impossible to resist ; it was pointed
out to me that I had listened on false pretences
if I had not intended to do my share, that telling
a story did not hinder my printing it. And as
a final argument it was declared that unless I
occupied the chair that night, all present with-
drew the leave that had already been given to
me, to print their stories on my return to England.
285
286 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
There was nothing therefore to be done ; and
as I had already considered the possibility of the
request, I did not occupy an unduly long time in
pretending to remember what I had to say.
When I was seated upstairs, and the fire had
been poked according to the ritual, and the
matches had gone round, and buckled shoes
protruded side by side with elastic-ankled boots,
I began.
" This is a very unsatisfactory story," I said,
" because it has no explanation of any kind. It
is quite unlike Mr. Percival's. You will see that
even theorizing is useless, when I have come to
the end. It is simply a series of facts that I have
to relate ; facts that have no significance except
one that is supernatural ; but it is utterly out of
the question even to guess at that significance.
" It is unsatisfactory, too, for a second reason ;
and that is, that it is on such very hackneyed
lines. It is simply one more instance of that very
dreary class of phenomena, named haunted
houses ; except that there is no ghost in it. Its
only claim to interest is, as I have said, the
complete futility of any attempt to explain it."
This was rather a pompous exordium, I felt ;
but I thought it best not to raise expectations
too high ; and I was therefore deliberately dull.
MY OWN TALE 287
" Sixteen years ago from last summer, I was
in Brittany. I had left school where I had
laboured two hours a week at French for four
years ; and gone away in order to learn it in six
weeks. This I accomplished very tolerably, in
company with five other boys and an English
tutor. Our general adventures are not relevant ;
but toward the end of our stay we went over
one Sunday from Portrieux in order to see a
French chiteau about three miles away.
" It was a really glorious June day, hot and
fresh and exhilarating ; and we lunched delight-
fully in the woods with a funny fat little French
Count and his wife who came with us from the
hotel. It is impossible to imagine less uncanny
circumstances or companions.
" After lunch we all went cheerfully to the
house, whose chimneys we had seen among the
trees.
" I know nothing about the dates of houses ;
but the sort of impression I got of this house was
that it was about three hundred years old ; yet
it may equally have been four, or two. I did not
know then ; and do not know now anything
about it except its name, which I will not tell
you ; and its owner's name which I will not tell
you either and and something else that I will
288 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
tell you. We will call the owner, if you please,
Comte Jean Marie the First. The house is built
in two courts. The right-hand court through
which we entered was then used as a farm-
yard ; and I should think it probable that it is
still so used. This court was exceedingly untidy.
There was a large manure heap in the centre ;
and the servants' quarters to our right looked
miserably cared for. There was a cart or two
with shafts turned up, near the sheds that were
built against the wall opposite the gate ; and
there was a sleepy old dog with bleared eyes that
looked at us crossly from his kennel door.
" Our French friend went across to the ser-
vants' cottages with his moustache sticking out
on either side of his face, and presently came
back with two girls and the keys. There was no
objection, he exclaimed dramatically, to our seeing
the house !
" The girls went before us, and unlocked the
iron gate that led to the second court ; and we
went through after them.
" Now, we had heard at the hotel that the family
lived in Paris ; but we were not prepared for the
dreadful desolation of that inner court. The
living part of the house was on our left ; and
what had once been a lawn to our right ; but the
MY OWN TALE 289
house was discoloured and weather-stained ; the
green paint of the closed shutters and door was
cracked and blistered ; and the lawn resembled
a wilderness ; the grass was long and rank ; there
were rose trees trailing along the edge and
across the path ; and a sun dial on the lawn
reminded me strangely of a drunken man petrified
in the middle of a stagger. All this of course
was what was to be expected in an adventure of
this kind. It would do for a Christmas number.
\ " But it was not our business to criticize ; and
after a moment or two, we followed the girls who
had unlocked the front door and were waiting for
us to enter.
" One of them had gone before to open the
shutters.
" It was not a large house, in spite of its name ;
and we had soon looked through the lower rooms
of it. They, too, were what you would expect :
the floors were beeswaxed ; there were tables
and chairs of a tolerable antiquity ; a little
damask on the walls, and so on. But what
astonished us was the fact that none of the furni-
ture was covered up, or even moved aside ; and
the dust lay, I should say, half-an-inch thick on
every horizontal surface. I heard the Frenchman
crying on his God in an undertone as is the
290 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
custom of Gauls" (I bowed a little to Father
Meuron) " and finally he burst out with a
question as to why the rooms were in this state.
" The girl looked at him stolidly. She was a
stout, red-faced girl.
' It is by the Count's orders/ she said.
" ' And does the Count not come here ? ' he
asked.
" ' No, sir/
" Then we all went upstairs. One of the girls
had preceded us again and was waiting with her
hand on the door to usher us in.
" ' See here the room, the most splendid/ she
said ; and threw the door open.
" It was certainly the room most splendid. It
was a great bed-chamber, hung with tapestry ;
there were some excellent chairs with carved
legs ; a fine gold framed mirror tilted forward
over the carved mantel-piece ; and, above all,
and standing out from the wall opposite the
window was a great four-posted bed, with an
elaborately carved head to it, and heavy curtains
hanging from the canopy.
" But what surprised us more than anything
that we had yet seen, was the sight of the bed.
Except for the dust that lay on it, it might have
been slept in the night before. There were
MY OWN TALE 291
actually damask sheets upon it, thrown back,
and two pillows all grey with dust. These
were not arranged but tumbled about, as a bed
is in the morning before it is made.
" As I was looking at this, I heard a boy cry
out from the washing-stand :
' Why it has had water in it/ he said.
" This did not sound exceptional for a basin,
but we all crowded round to look ; and it was
perfectly true ; there was a grey film around the
interior of it ; and when he had disturbed it (as a
boy would) with his finger, we could see the
flowered china beneath. The line came two-thirds
of the way up the sides of the basin. It must
have been partly filled with water a long while
ago, which gradually evaporated, leaving its mark
in the dust that must have collected there week
after week.
" The Frenchman lost his patience at that.
' My sacred something ! " he said, ' why is
the room like this ? '
" The same girl who had answered him before,
answered him again in the same words. She
was standing by the mantel-piece watching us.
' It is the Count's orders/ she said stolidly.
" ' It is by the Count's orders that the bed is
not made ? ' snapped the man.
292 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
' Yes, sir,' said the girl simply.
" Well, that did not content the Frenchman.
He exhibited a couple of francs and began to
question.
:< This is the story that he got out of her. She
told it quite simply.
" The last time that Count Jean Marie had
come to the place, it had been for his honeymoon.
He had come down from Paris with his bride.
They had dined together downstairs, very happily
and gaily ; and had slept in the room in which
we were at this moment. A message had been
sent out for the carriage early next morning;
and the couple had driven away with their trunks,
leaving the servants behind. They had not
returned, but a message had come from Paris
that the house was to be closed. It appeared
that the servants who had been left behind had
had orders that nothing was to be tidied ; even
the bed was not to be made ; the rooms were to
be locked up and left as they were.
" The Frenchman had hardly been able to
restrain himself as he heard this unconvincing
story ; though his wife shook him by the shoulders
at each violent gesture that he made, and at the
end he had put a torrent of questions.
" ' Were they frightened then ? '
MY OWN TALE 293
" ' I do not know, sir.'
" ' I mean the bride and bridegroom, fool ! '
" ' I do not know, sir.'
" ' Sacred name and and why do you not
know?'
" ' I have never seen any of them, sir.'
" ' Not seen them ! Why you said just now '
" ' Yes, sir ; but I was not born then. It was
thirty years ago.'
" I do not think I have ever seen people so
bewildered as we all were. This was entirely
unexpected. The Frenchman's jaw dropped ;
he licked his lips once or twice, and turned away.
We all stood perfectly still a moment, and then
we went out."
I indulged myself with a pause just here. I
was enjoying myself more than I thought I should.
I had not told the story for some while ; and had
forgotten what a good one it was. Besides, it
had the advantage of being perfectly true. Then
I went on again, with a pleased consciousness of
faces turned to me and black-ended cigarettes.
" I must tell you this," I said" I was relieved
to get out of the room. It is sixteen years ago
now ; and I may have embroidered on my own
sensations ; but my impression is that I had been
just a little uncomfortable even before the girl's
294 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
story. I don't think that I felt that there was
any presence there, or anything of that kind. It
was rather the opposite ; it was the feeling of an
extraordinary emptiness."
" Like a Catholic cathedral in Protestant
hands/' put in a voice.
I nodded at the zealous, convert-making Father
Brent.
" It was very like that," I said, " and had, too,
the same kind of pathos and terror that one feels
in the presence of a child's dead body. It is
unnaturally empty, and yet significant ; and one
does not quite know what it signifies."
I paused again.
" Well, Reverend Fathers ; that is the first
Act. We went back to Portrieux : we made
inquiries and got no answer. All shrugged their
shoulders and said that they did not know.
" There were no tales of the bride's hair turning
white in the night, or of any curse or ghost or
noises or lights. It was just as I have told you.
Then we went back to England ; and the curtain
came down.
" Now, generally, such curtains have no resur-
rection. I suppose we have all had fifty experi-
ences of first Acts ; and we do not know to this
day whether the whole play is a comedy or a
MY OWN TALE 295
tragedy ; or even whether the play has been
written at all."
" Do not be modern and allusive, Mr. Benson,"
said Monsignor.
" I beg your pardon, Monsignor ; I will not.
I forgot myself. Well, here is the second Act.
There are only two ; and this is a much shorter
one.
" Nine years later I was in Paris ; staying in
the Rue Picot with some Americans. A French
friend of theirs was to be married to a man ; and
I went to the wedding at the Madeleine. It was
well, it was like all other weddings at the
Madeleine. No description can be adequate to
the appearance of the officiating clergyman and
the altar and the bridesmaids and the French
gentlemen with polished boots and butterfly ties,
and the conversation, and the gaiety, and the
general impression of a confectioner's shop and
a milliner's and a salon and a holy church. I
observed the bride and bridegroom and forgot
their names for the twentieth time, and exchanged
some remarks in the sacristy with a leader of
society who looked like a dissipated priest ; with
my eyes starting out of my head in my anxiety
not to commit a solecisme or a barbarisms. And
then we went home again.
296 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
" On the way home we discussed the honeymoon.
The pair were going down to a country-house
in Brittany. I inquired the name of it ;
and of course it was the chateau I had visited
nine years before. It had been lent them by
Count Jean Marie the Second. The gentleman
resided in England, I heard, in order to escape
the conscription ; he was a connexion of the
bride's ; and was about thirty years of age.
" Well, of course I was interested ; and made
inquiries and related my adventure. The Ameri-
cans were mildly interested too, but not excited.
Thirty-nine years is ancient history to that ener-
getic nation." (I bowed to Father Jenks, before
I remembered that he was a Canadian ; and then
pretending that I had not I went on quickly,
and missed a dramatic opportunity.) " But
two days afterwards they were excited. One of
the girls came into dejeuner ; and said that she
had met the bride and bridegroom dining together
in the Bois. They had seemed perfectly well,
and had saluted her politely. It seemed that
they had. come back to Paris after one night
at the chateau, exactly as another bride and
bridegroom had done thirty-nine years before.
" Before I finish, let me sum up the situation.
" In neither case was there apparently any
MY OWN TALE 297
shocking incident ; and yet something had been
experienced that broke up plans and sent away
immediately from a charming house and country
two pairs of persons who had deliberately formed
the intention of living there for a while. In both
cases the persons in question had come back to
Paris.
" I need hardly say that I managed to call with
my friends upon the bride and bridegroom ; and,
at the risk of being impertinent, asked the bride
point-blank why they had changed their plans
and come back to town.
" She looked at me without a trace of horror in
her eyes, and smiled a little.
" ' It was triste,' she said, ' a little tristc. We
thought we would come away ; we desired crowds. ' * '
I paused again.
" ' We desired crowds/ " I repeated. " You
remember, Reverend Fathers, that I had experi-
enced a sense of loneliness even with my friends
during five minutes spent in that upstairs room.
I can only suppose that if I had remained longer
I should have experienced such a further degree
of that sensation that I should have felt exactly
as those two pairs of brides and bridegrooms felt ;
and have come away immediately. I might
even, if I had been in authority, have given orders
ao-(aooo).
298 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
that nothing was to be touched except my own
luggage."
" I do not understand that/' said Father Brent,
looking puzzled.
" Nor do I altogether/' I answered, " but I
think I perceive it to be a fact for all that. One
might feel that one was an intruder ; that one
had meddled with something that desired to be
left alone, and that one had better not meddle
further in any kind of way."
" I suppose you went down there again,"
observed Monsignor Maxwell.
" I did, a fortnight afterwards. There was
only one girl left ; the other was married and
gone away. She did not remember me ; it was
nine years ago ; and she was a little redder in the
face and a little more stolid.
" The lawn had been clipped and mown, but
was beginning to grow rank again. Then I went
upstairs with her. The room was comparatively
clean ; there was water in the basin ; and clean
sheets on the bed ; but there was just a little film
of dust lying on everything. I pretended I knew
nothing and asked questions ; and I was told exactly
the same story as I had heard nine years before ;
only this time the date was only a fortnight ago.
" When she had finished, she added :
MY OWN TALE 299
" ' It happened so once before, sir : before I
was born.'
" ' Do you understand it ? ' I said.
' No, sir ; the house is a little triste, perhaps.
Do you think so, sir ? '
" I said that perhaps it was. Then I gave her
two francs and came away.
" That is all, Reverend Fathers."
There was silence for a minute. Then Padre
Bianchi made what I consider a tactless remark.
" Bah ! that does not terrify me," he said.
" ' Terrify ' is certainly not the word," remarked
Monsignor Maxwell.
" I am not quite sure about that," ended
Father Brent.
The bell rang for night-prayers.
" Sum up, Father Rector," said Monsignor
without moving. " You have heard all the stories,
and Mr. Benson is going to-morrow."
The old priest smiled as he stood up ; and was
silent for a moment, looking at us all.
" I can only sum up like this with the sentiments
with which Monsignor began," he said. ' The
longer I live and the more I hear and see, the
greater I feel my ignorance to be. I heard a
300 A MIRROR OF SHALOTT
man say the other day that Catholics were
the only genuine agnostics alive ; and that he
respected them for it. They knew some things
that others did not ; but they did not pretend
to affirm or to deny that of which they had no
possibility of judging. Is that what you meant
me to say, Monsignor ? "
Monsignor nodded meditatively.
" I think that is a sound conclusion/' he said.
" I would even go further, and say that the stories
that we have heard confirm me, at any rate, in
what I said at first. Some of them, if the
narrators will forgive me, are so utterly pointless
and inexplicable when regarded from the human
point of view, that all they seem to prove is that
there must be another. Of course we all believe
that, but most of us don't act as if we did. . . .
It is like looking on at the backs of a crowd ;
they are attending to something else, not to us
at all. Just occasionally we catch the eye of
some one who turns round ; but that is all."
He drew up his feet suddenly, and leaned
forward. Then he went on in a graver voice than
it was his custom to use.
" Or, shall we say, each of us is like a new-born
child in a great house ? In one sense, we are
attended to a great deal. All kinds of mysteries
MY OWN TALE 301
are performed of which we are, at least, partly,
the object ; and what we do know of them, we
do know, but that is very little indeed. And
meanwhile there are dark corridors along which
footsteps pass ; we catch the sound of voices, and
the glimmer of lights "
He broke off, and turned to me.
" It is understood, then, Mr. Benson, that if you
print these stories, you will add that not one of
us commits himself to belief in any of them
except, I suppose, each in his own ? "
" I will mention it," I said.
" Perhaps you might say that we do not even
commit ourselves to our own. You can say what
you like about yours, of course."
" I will mention that, too," I said, " and I will
class myself with the rest. The agnostic position
is certainly the soundest in all matters outside
the Deposit of Faith. ... We all stand, then,
exactly where we did at the beginning ? "
" Certainly, I do," said Padre Bianchi.
" We all do," said a number of voices.
Then we went to night-prayers, together, for
the last time.
THE END
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8
MISCELLANEOUS (cont4.)
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MISCELLANEOUS (contd.)
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11
POETRY. ETC. (
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THEOLOGICAL
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14
THEOLOGICAL (contd )
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THEOLOGICAL (contd.)
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THEOLOGICAL (contd.)
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i
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THOLOGICAL (contd.}
THE SOCIAL RESULTS OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. By C. SCHMIDT.
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THEOLOGICAL (contd.)
COMPANION TO HYMNS, A. AND M. By the REV. C. W. A. BROOKE,
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THE SOCIAL WORKERS' GUIDE. A Handbook of Information
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HOW TO TEACH AND CATECHISE. A Plea for the Employment
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By the Rev. J. A. RIVINGTON, M.A., formerly Second Master at
St. Paul's Cathedral Choir School. With a Preface by the LORD
BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER. Cheaper Edition. In crown 8vo, cloth
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THE SPRING OF THE DAY. SPIRITUAL ANALOGIES FROM THE THINGS
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20
THEOLOGICAL (contd.)
THE CLOCK OF NATURE. By the late HUGH MACMILLAN, D.D.,
LL.D. In crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. net.
An attempt to bring out the wise lessons which the objects of
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A collection of popular studies, showing the many points of beauty
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trations and map. In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 7s. 6d. net.
" Nothing so intimate has yet appeared upon the subject as this
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Each in imperial 16mo. cloth gilt, gilt top, with about 30 full-page
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ITALY OF THE ITALIANS. By HELEN ZIMMERN.
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21
TRAVEL, TOPOGRAPHY, AND SPORT (contd.)
FRANCE OF THE FRENCH. By E. HARRISON BARKER.
" A book of general information concerning the life and genius
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of the Germans in an able and informing fashion. Daily Telegraph.
TURKEY OF THE OTTOMANS. By LUCY M. J. GARNETT.
" There could hardly be a better handbook for the newspaper
reader who wants to understand all the conditions of the ' danger
zone.' " Spectator.
BELGIUM OF THE BELGIANS. By DEMETRIUS C. BOULGER.
" A very complete handbook to the country." World.
HOLLAND OF THE DUTCH. By the same author.
" . . . It contains everything that one needs to know about
the country. Mr. Boulger has the seeing eye, and everything is
described with vivacity and sympathetic insight." Aberdeen Fre*
Press.
SERVIA OF THE SERVIANS. By CHEDO MIJATOVICH.
" It is a useful and informative work and it deserves to be widely
read." Liverpool Daily Courier.
JAPAN OF THE JAPANESE. By Professor J. H. LONGFORD. With
map.
" A capital historical resume and a mine of information regard-
ing the country and its people." London and China Telegraph.
22
TRAVEL, TOPOGRAPHY. AND SPORT (contd.\
AUSTRIA OF THE AUSTRIANS AND HUNGARY OF THE
HUNGARIANS. By L. KELLNER, PAULA ARNOLD and ARTHUR
L. DELISLE.
RUSSIA OF THE RUSSIANS. By H. WHITMORE WILLIAMS, Ph.D.
GREECE OF THE HELLENES. By LUCY M. J. GARNETT.
Other Volumes in preparation.
The " All Red" Series
Each volume is in demy 8vo, cloth gilt, with 16 full -page plate
illustrations, maps, etc., 7s. 6d. net.
THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA. By the Hon. BERNHARD
RINGROSE WISE (formerly Attorney-General of New South Wales).
Second Edition Revised.
" The ' All Red ' Series should become known as the Well- Read
Series within a short space of time. Nobody is better qualified to
write of Australia than the late Attorney-General of New South
Wales, who knows the country intimately and writes of it with
enthusiasm. It is one of the best accounts of the Island Continent
that has yet been published. We desire to give a hearty welcome
to this series." Globe.
THE DOMINION OF NEW ZEALAND. By the late Sir ARTHUR P.
DOUGLAS, Bt., formerly Under-Secretary for Defence, New Zealand,
and previously a Lieutenant, R.N.
" Those who have failed to find romance in the history of the
British Empire should read The Dominion of New Zealand. Sir
Arthur Douglas contrives to present in the 444 pages of his book an
admirable account of life in New Zealand and an impartial summary
of her development up to the present time. It is a most alluring
picture that one conjures up after reading it." Standard.
THE DOMINION OF CANADA. By W. L. GRIFFITH, Secretary to
the Office of the High Commissioner for Canada.
" The publishers could hardly have found an author better
qualified than Mr. Griffith to represent the premier British Dominion
. an excellent plain account of Canada, one of the best and most
comprehensive yet published . trustworthy."-- A thenaum
TRAVEL, TOPOGRAPHY, AND SPORT (contd.)
THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. Their History, Resources, and Pro-
gress. By ALGERNON E. ASPINALL, Secretary to the West India
Committee.
"... hence the value oi such a book as Mr. Aspinall has
compiled so skilfully. Its treatment of current topics is copious
up-to-date, and full of varied interest . . . every visitor to the
West Indies will be well advised if he takes Mr. Aspinall's book as
hie guide." Times
THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA. With chapters on Rhodesia and the
Native Territories of the High Commission. By W. BASIL WORSFOUD,
Sometime Editor of the " Johannesburg Star."
" . . . The promoters of ' All Red Series ' got the right man for
the work. Mr. Worsfold's considerable experience of the making
of the country from within, combined with his training as a jour-
nalist, have enabled him to cope with the task in a way that would
have been impossible to a less skilled and well-informed annalist.
Into 500 pages he has compressed the main outlines of the history
and geography of that much-troubled dominion, the form of its
new Constitution, its industrial developments, and social and
political outlook. The volume is an encyclopedia of its subject."
Yorkshire Post.
THE EMPIRE OF INDIA. By SIR J. BAMPFYLDE FULLER, K.C.S.I..
Formerly Lieutenant- Governor of Eastern Bengal.
" Sir Bampfylde Fuller was well qualified to write such a book as
this which will serve admirably for an introduction to the study of
Indian conditions and politics. Sir Bampfylde Fuller presents a
complete picture of the Indian Empire the country, its people,
its government, and its future prospects." Times.
"No western mind more practically versed in and sympathetic
with the Indian spirit could be found than his, and his long adminis-
trative experience could not fail to lead him to compile a well
balanced volume." Times of India.
WINTER LIFE IN SWITZERLAND. Its Sports and Health Cures.
By Mrs. M. L. and WINIFRED M. A. BROOKE. New Edition.
In crown 8vo, cloth, 290 pp., with coloured frontispiece and many
full-page plates, maps, and other illustrations, 3s. 6d. net.
This book is so full of description and useful information on
all points as to be an indispensable possession to anyone intending
a winter visit to Switzerland.
SIR ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, LTD., 1 AMEN CORNER, LONDON, E.G.
PR
4099
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